Surthay
by Kyn
Summary: A Thayvian Mulan, even a commoner, should not be on Rashemi shores...
1. The Dusk Dragon

Dusk had settled over the Eastern Orchards of Rasheman, where the forests curled across the narrow plateau at the foot of the Sunrise Mountans. They were called 'orchards' for their fruit; not their temperament. The trees spiraled; gnarled, thick, and grasping; into the purple air, their branches flush with leaves and fruits of every color. On the forest floor, far beneath heavy bows, the intelligent spiders and dire beetles came out from hiding, accompanying raccoons, wintry tarsirs, coyotes, and owls.

The twilight air was purple with Faerie Fire, as the dragon-sprites and pixies played about in the branches; and fireflies and will'o'wisps filled the air between them. The forest was dark, and old, and filled with unpleasantries. It was where witches went to treat with hags, or gather rare herbs; a place of great spiritual power and presence, but also great danger.

But as the witch walked through her domain, staff in hand, she thought how happy she was to be _home_. Her stride was languid and casual, and the animals made way for her or else came to touch the hem of her cloak.

_Freedom is in exploring the darkness._ There was _air _out in the Orchards, away from the unsolicited companionship and petty squabbles of so many flustered witches. Glorious, free night air! There was a reason her sisters called her 'Dusk Dragon.'

Her companion, Nüdnisé, chittered in loud agreement, swooping up to seek her dinner in the canopy.

As she reached the stream, the Kelpies lifted their heads from grazing, and shifted about on their dainty hooves. A dozen wide and inncoent frog-eyes fixated on her, and great black eyelashes fluttered. Then the creatures lowered their heads again, because nothing was amiss. She walked past them, glancing at the youngest foal thoughtfully but without malice or grief.

The hour was later; the journey had been long; and now it was time for her to return home and _sleep_.

But just then a hummingbird came streaking out of the forest. The tiny creature bolted up to her, and paused midair to be certain it had ascertained her identity. She tilted her head to the side. "Lead the way," she told it.


	2. The Boy

The Dusk Dragon frowned, peering at the crumpled human form which was sprawled over the roots of a five-hundred year old apple tree. It was a man, the hummingbird explained, and he had collapsed there some time ago. He was breathing, the witch could hear; and the smell of damp wool suggested he was wet.

The witch woman shook her head and leaned her staff to the side, and lifted her skirts so she might kneel. The first thing she took note of was how _little_ the man weighed; a child would have been heavier. The overlarge brown cloak he was wearing must have been borrowed or else stolen. Then she summoned up a light and took a better look at his face. Her eyes widened in surprise and curiosity.

_A Mulan, _she realized. _How? _Her gaze flicked south, to where the icy northern shore of Lake Mulsantir was occluded by miles of cliffs and trees. Then she looked down at the crumpled man in disbelief. _Did thou swim here? Impossible. Then where the hells did thou come from?_

He _must_ have been Thayvian; as unlikely as it seemed, it made less sense to find a Mulhorandi or Untherite in Rasheman. _The crows may have him then; but let us see what his purpose was..._ _A Thayvian Mulan, even a commoner, should not be on Rashemi shores._

She began untethering the robe that she might search him. As one fastener came loose after the other, a vague uneasiness rose up in her. She paused what she was doing and picked up the man's arm, shook loose his sleeve, and ran her thumb over the curvature of his skin. His wrists were slender, even in proportion to the rest of his body.

The woman's brows furrowed, and she looked uncertainly to the sallow face. _You are no more than a boy, _she realized, and it was true. At most he might be seventeen. There was no reason for him to be so far north, or across the lake, unless someone had not intended that he return. She thought of Lake Mulsantir, whose waters were rife with predators loyal to the northern border. Then she turned her gaze out into the woods, where a number of hungry rats were scuttling, waiting to have their turn.

The Wychlaran looked back down at the boy. _Well, the dead cannot answer questions, _she decided, before leaning over to cast a warming cantrip on him. He was light enough to carry, and the made the trip to her cottage with little real trouble.


	3. Smudging

Her captive was scarcely breathing, and his lukewarm temperature suggested hypothermia. Death would soon follow. His robes hung sopping from a wall peg, and she'd quickly built him a makeshift palette of old fur blankets and a cloak of crow feathers.

The fire helped to warm the small one-roomed cottage. Smooth stones were nestled around its hearth, some big and some small. When they had become too hot to touch, the witch wrapped several in warm cloth and then nestled them under his covers. Others she placed into a ceramic basin with her fire tongs, and covered them with spring water from a crystal flask.

Her fingers ran over jars, bowls, matts, vases, and tins as she pecked around her cottage. From a cupboard she found leaves of the silver apricot, dried and crushed into powder. In a glass jar she found hazelwood twigs, steeping in liquor of whortleberry. She snagged a bulb of garlic from where they were strung up overhead in the rafters. She tapped the vials on her racks, and extracted an essential oil of angelica. A drop she'd waste, no more. And a drop of Fennel, she supposed. But then they were not so rare or terribly hard to make. ..

She settled down the basin, sprinkling in her ingrediets and letting the two hazel wood twigs lean against the side. The water turned translucent and somewhat purple. It still needed a hint of freshness and life. Leaning onto her window sill, the witch gestured out into the evening air. A soft gust blew fresh apple leaves into her palm, and she dropped them gently onto the surface of the steaming water.

The witch stood with the basin in hand and turned to weave her way back through the cottage, picking up a clean cloth from one wall and wetting it before she knelt upon the makeshift palette. She pulled aside the heavy comforters, and reached down to dab against her captive's face, throat, and torso. As she worked, she examined injuries she had found covering a good third or half of his body. They were scald marks; the sort of which one might have incurred if thrown into a caldron of boiling water. They seemed recent, if the ugly red color was proper indiation. Some form of healing- mayhaps a potion- had healed the worst blisters and sealed most leisions.

_"In the name of the mother;" _she murmured, comfortable but focused even at such a late hour, _"in the name of the three; let his blood be rejuvinated with the heat of life. Turn the fire of these wounds to greater purpose, to drive back the frost."_

She bathed him carefully and swiftly with the heated water. When she was done, she fed him some of the liquor of whortleberry. A flush had risen in his cheeks. She touched his face and neck, and then chafted gently over his shoulders. The spell was taking hold, it seemed; he was heating up. Satisfied, she pulled the covers back over his head, and stood. She left the cottage for a short while, sitting amoungst her herbs and contemplating the evening gloom.

A Mulan child had neither accidentally nor casually found himself in Rasheman. The scalding she'd witnessed had seemed unnatural; the center wound had been red as if he'd been struck by the boiling water with quite some force. Could magic have been responsible? Some battle internal to Thay? Some trouble or misfortune she might inherit?

On a whim she stood up and went to find a white candle to light. She selected an incense stick made from rue, burdock, and antimony, which she gathered up in a bundle of sage for smudging. She lit both until they were smoking gently, and then carried them about her home to ensure the smoke reached every corner.

_"Let all dark eyes and malevolant wills be cast out and barred from this place. Let it depart shamefully and know: all evil is unwelcome here, in the light of this candle, in the fervor of my sight."_


	4. Greetings

When the boy stirred, the cottage was warm with yellow light trickling down through the canopy. At first he did no more than turn his head as if sleeping restlessly. Then his eyes peeled open and he winced. Squeezing his eyes shut again in pain, he tried to sit up. His strength only got him so far. There he paused, blinking rapidly as he attempted to get his bearings.

The witch blew softly over her tea. "Good morning, Thayvian."

The boy looked at her quickly. His eyes were a dark, slate gray against his sallow flesh. For a moment he seemed briefly puzzled by the sight of her. Then his gaze drifted briefly around the cottage. Then, instead of looking fearful as she had expected, his gaze turned briefly neutral.

"My Rashemi poor," he murmured quietly. "Good morning."

The witch raised a brow, digesting this answer. The vapors of her tea beckoned further contemplation. She took another sip, and then tapped the mug with her nails. {So art mine Mulhorandi,} she decied at last. {What art thou doing on Rasheman?}

"I needed to... flee," he told her, trying to situate himself in an easier position against his pillows.

"Thou fled to the land of thine enemy?" she asked incredulously,

"Enemy?" he asked, and then shrugged weakly. "Where do I has allies?"

"Is Thay not thine home?" she wondered incredulously.

His gaze turned incredibly solemn, and he did not answer as he looked to the floor. The witch regarded him curiously, for she had always understood Thayvians to be patriotic not only to country but to province, and to espouse their allegiances loudly. After a long stillness, his gaze shifted to the side. "Is you Wychlaran?" he asked.

"Of course," she retorted. "Do I look unproven to thee?"

"Is you going to kill me?" he asked quietly.

She took a slow breath and sighed. "I am entertaining the notion. Tell me, Thayvian; what would thou do if I decided to kill thee right now?"

He answered: "Die."

That drew a laugh from her. "I see. And what would thou do if I found it within my heart to turn thee loose where I found thee?"

The boy shrugged. "Most likely: Die."

She tilted her head, smiling in amusement and sipping on her tea. "I see. Well then, if thou were to have thine own say, what would thou ask that I do with thee, mm?"

The boy looked at her quietly. His gaze shifted inward as he considered. Then he focused on her again. "Have me... work off the debt of saving me?" he asked weakly.

The witch raised a brow. A Thayvian spoke with humility? A Mulan volunteered humble labor to a Rashemi? Most likely he intended to knife her in his sleep!

But a worrying uncertainty welled up in her breast, as she watched the boy whom had tossed and fevered for two days under her care and yet never called out for anyone: not for a mother, a sister, or even a nursemaid. There was a cold and haunted silence to his face, and in his eyes.

Something had happened to this child. Something where leaping into Mulsantir's freezing waters and fleeing into the lands of the Wychlaran had been less frightening than staying in country.

After the silence had stretched ominously between them for well over a minute, she inclined her head. "We shall see," she answered then, and stood to pour him a few ladels of soup broth.


	5. Goats

"Boy, how old art thou?" she asked him from the stoop as she wove grass blades into a new basket.

The Mulan looked up at her from where he'd been thrown into the dirt, and he rubbed his arm with a painful wince. "Ten and seven," he told her.

"And thou has never in thine life milked a goat?" she wondered incredulously, a grin on her face.

He shook his head with startling innocence.

"I can tell," she chortled. "That was the _buck_." He blinked vacantly, not understanding the term. "The male goat. What _doest_ thou know how to do? Any boy your age should be proficient at least in _chores_."

He made a face of surprise. Then he stood, dusting off the overlarge robes. He was as tall as her, to be certain, but much too thin. "I is not 'boy.' I comed of age last year."

"At sixteen?" she laughed in disbelief. "Here in Rasheman, thou art a boy. And thou shall continue to remain a child until thine twenty-first year, at which point perhaps thou might have gathered some wisdom."

He paused, a hesitant frown tugging low at the corners of his mouth as if something had suddenly occured to him.

"Cannot milk a goat," she muttered wryly, talking to herself more than him. "Adulthood implies responsibility for making one's own judgements. How can one make good judgements without maturity, or without even basic threshold knowledge about the world?"

She had expected a show of pride or disdain from the foreign whelp, but instead his actions disarmed her: "Will show me?" he requested. "I can learn."

She studied him for a long moment. Then she nodded, settled down the basket, and stepped up from the cottage doorway. "Once and once only," she agreed. "So watch closely, _child_."

Instead of becoming riled, he inclined his head respectfully; accepting the appelation as the best he'd yet earned from her. She paused to regard his face, but as usual he did not look her in the eyes. She looked for signs of viperousness, resentment, or manipulation about his countenance but, if anything, he seemed perpetually _tired_. After a moment she took him by the shoulder and led him up to where the animals were feeding. Goats were not so terribly difficult once one got to know them.


	6. One's Keep

By nightfall, the Mulan boy looked exhausted. He had acquired a fresh set of bruises. When she called him in and bade him sit, however, he did not complain; And when she offered him a bowl of hearty stew, he took it and blew heat from the surface without question.

She sat to eat her own meal and watched him. He rarely looked at her. The way his eyes stayed focused on the ground or an invisible horizon suggested he spent much time either adrift in his own head or else escaping thought all-together. When he took his first bite of vegetables and meat, a look of displeased surprise briefly crossed his face. He paused then and then focused on the brown mixture he was holding; stuffed full of stalk and root vegetables and inundated with rabbit meat. Apparently the taste was strange to him.

His hands trembled, and a moment later he took in a sharp and soundless breath. Then he dug into the meal as if starving; wolfed it down like a beast. He ate everything. He gathered up every drop of gravy on the edge of his spoon to drink.

When he was done he moved to set the bowl down. She coughed and gestured to a pitcher of well water. It took him a moment to process what she was asking. Then he went to wash off his dishes, and hers soon after. She showed him how to dispose of the dirty water. Betime he was done, he looked dead on his feet; and his face was heated in a way that suggested he was suffering from some kinds of emotional deluge. She sent him to bed, and he was sound asleep in minutes.

The witch spent some time working on her own herb preparations and other chores. Then she stood and came up to the makeshift palette, watching her 'captive' sleep. He was a fragile-looking creature, like a bird plucked of all its feathers. His skin was a pale and yellowish color, and he had no hair upon his head. She leaned over slightly, pulling up one of her sleeves to bare the cocoa color of her arm. His bones were thin, his muscles lean, and his flesh was was as smooth as oiled buckskin; Her forearm was just as long as his, but twice its diameter, and her skin featured plenty of soft, natural hair.

She shook her head, amused by the differences. He looked very frail within his brown robes. Perhaps he needed to learn to hem, next.

Before heading to bed, she tucked him into the fur covers. He was, it appeared, only human.


	7. Do not leave the cottage yard

She taught him to sew, both in planning and execution. She taught him to spin. He sweapt the floor, washed the dishes, and dusted the cobwebs. He maintained the fire, covering hot coals when they were unneeded and reviving them later.

He was terrible at splitting firewood; he improved. He had no idea how to build a fire from naught but flint and tinder; he was patient for hours and hours of trial and error. He was responsible for mastering the art of churning butter; which she used in just about every recipe. Thus far, he had not been very successful.

The days passed in a manner so mundane that it seemed almost as if he had always been there.

The Mulan boy did not match her expectations of what it meant to be Thayvian. He was quiet and obedient; and meek to the point of subservience. He rarely contradicted her even in ignorance, and he never complained about any task she gave to him.

"Hmm," she observed of a jar as days blended into weeks. "I need to gather herbs today. I am out of alfalfa. And low on others..."

"What should I do?" he asked, eyeing the butter churner contemplatively as if selecting his tactic for the day.

She waved a hand, uncaring. "Clean, perhaps. Or rest; I need nothing of you."

He looked to her in surprise, scratching lightly at his jaw.

He did have the ability to grow hair, as it turned out; though the folicals on his head were sparsely distributed in comparison to a Rashemi's. His only facial hair grew in a thin mustache and about the frame of his chin. As for body hair, it seemed he naturally had none. Mulan were strange creatures.

"Nothing?" he asked. She was too distracted to notice he sounded worried. As she made to pass him and exit the home, she paused to give him one final instruction: "Do not leave the cottage yard," she warned him sternly. "These forests eat strangers."


	8. Cluttered

The young man looked hesitantly around the cottage. It was a space in which he'd never before been unoccupied, or alone. From dawn until dusk, the Wychlaran had kept him busy. It helped; he had less time to think. Now, left to his own devices, he was not sure what to do.

It was also unsettling for the witch herself to be absent. Since he'd awoken all those many days ago, she had been a constant presence. The sudden deprivation of her presence- and she was a woman with _quite_ an inordinate amount of presence- made everything seem...

...quiet.

The butter preparation from three days past still to be churned of course, so he set to managing that. As he worked, his eyes traced the cottage features. The witch could not be considered 'messy' in the sense that all of her things were visible, dusted, upright, and in use. A great amount of utility had been coaxed from the four walls, narrow wood pillars, and low rafters of the tiny cottage. There were pegs, racks, hooks and cabinets.

On the other hand, there was scarcely a surface unoccupied by a wide variety of randomly scattered bowls, vials, flasks, jars, cans, vases, assorted herbs, spiced, fruits and vegetables, nuts, mortars and pestles, cloves, garlic, flowers, totems, incense sticks, candles, bundles, and bags occupied nearly every conceivable inch of space. Dangling from the rafters were flowering ivy plants, nets of dried gourds, and cloth satchels or racks filled to the brim with supplies.

No, the Wychlaran was not 'messy.' But her home was singularly the most cluttered space the young man had ever borne witness to. He could scarcely imagine or comprehend a home with more area taken up by unmanaged, loose objects.

He finished with the churn. Using cheesecloth, he attempted to strain the butter clods from the buttermilk. His result was pitiful in size. Butter, he thought, was proof that simple tasks could be surprisingly difficult. He looked back up at the cottage. His fingers tapped nervously against the churn. 'Rest...' she had told him; but that had only been her _second_ suggestion. The young man gave a dry swallow.

The Wychlaran did not return home that evening.

Anxiety kept him from sleeping.


	9. Uncluttered

It was morning when the witch returned to her cottage. After entering she let out an undignified exclamation of surprise. The boy jumped, and then twisted about to look at her. He loosed a hard breath, and leaned on his broom.

"What have thou done?!" she demanded.

"Is organized," he explained.

"Organized? Where is everything!?" she scolded, stalking about the chamber.

"The cupboards, the shelves, the bins, the racks," he listed; "Alphabetical, likes with likes."

She appraised one of her vial racks, which had indeed been reorganized such that only the largest flasks were on the bottom, the smallest were exclusively on the top, the names for each set were alphabetized, and the rack contained only essences and oils. A second rack contained extracts and liquors.

The witch turned and fixed the boy with a stern glare. "What possessed thee to do this thing?" she required immediate explanation.

"You said to 'clean.' I wanted to make easier to find everything-"

"Easier for thou or for me?" she glowered. "I knew exactly where each object was! Now thou hast moved everything!"

He swallowed and looked down. She watched him critically a moment. Then she looked up into the rafters. He had left the gourds, which were large and unweildy, and frequently used objects such as cloths, tools, and utensils. Suprisingly, he had also left the garlic, rue, and several other spices she'd left pinned and strung up along the rafters.

"So why not 'clean up' and 'organize' these as well?" she asked, gesturing angrily at the ceiling. "Why be inconsistent in moving around things that do not belong to thee? Need I remind you that you are barely even tolerated here?!"

He flinched. "Their positioning seemed deliberate," he whispered quickly. "They was spread out. I reasoned they was protective."

"'Were'," she corrected his grammar unconsciously, and then turned a thoughtful look onto him. "Protective how?"

He shifted, as if not knowing what to say. "Perhaps the smell discourage termites," he offered at last. He glanced up to see she was still glowering. He looked down again, seeming very uncomfortable. "Some things did not look stored or forgotten; they looked deliberately placed. Under mats... in window and threshold... in pillows, on mantle... Some in sachets; others tied up, presented. I did not clean these.

I do not know or question the reason for their witch placing them, except to see they were intentional, so that I should not disturb them."

She straightened a little, and crossed her arms over her chest. "And you presume to know when what I am doing is intentional? You are a Wychlaran now? Tell me, did you clean up my kettle, boy?"

The young man looked miserable; his knuckles were white around the broom. "The one you took out... before seeing the lack of herbs? You filled it with flask water, not well water. I supposed that might be significant, so I poured it back into the flask."

His response was incredibly observant, and gave the Dusk Dragon pause. She studied the Mulan child with fresh eyes, a thoughtful frown crinkling her brow. After a moment, she began taking inventory of her home, she paid attention to where each and every item had been placed. A few materials she had left to cure in the sun had been placed on a rack and neatly tilted to absorb heat and light. The flask he'd refilled with her forgotten moonwater had been settled neatly against the back of her counter top. He had dusted everything.

This was unexpected, and the Wychlaran placed her hands upon her hips and turned a curious expression back to the downcast child. She had suffered through ethrans twice his age- and significantly older than herself!- destroying rare and delicate ingredients in an effort to 'help' her. And here it appeared the Thayvian had damaged nothing at all. Not a thing.

In fact, he'd most likely saved the moonwater. She'd been chastising herself the whole trip back to the cottage for leaving it out. There was nothing whatsoever in his behavior to find flaw with.

She frowned. Then she lifted a hand to rub her face. "Start a fire," she told him, her tone subdued. He scrambled to obey instantaneously.


	10. Gardening

The Wychlaran's hair looked red in sunlight. It was mahogany brown, and stood in subtle contrast against the warm coffee color of her skin and the plain tan and cream colors she wore. The color brought out her youth.

She wore no metal jewelry of any kind, but that was not to say she was unadorned. She wore many a tribal fetish, or at least that was the only means by which he knew to describe them. She had talismans of interlaced strings, beads, and feathers, which stretched across bowed frames in spiderweb patterns. Her cloaks were fringed with feathers.

She wore necklaces of sharp teeth; bracelets of woven hair, fur, and plant material; and always she had plenty of beads. Often she would bead and braid strands of her hair, and push feathers or herbs into them. In aesthetic contrast, there were several 'trophy' like items at her belt sash, including shriveled humanoid fingers far too long to have come to any race he knew of. Her ears were pierced in several places; the earrings she wore currently were beaded and equipped with dangling bear claws.

There was a sense of wisdom to her; a ghost of ancient things; that belied her age. The skin of her face was smooth, even about the eyes. If he had guessed, he would have placed her at twenty-five or twenty-six.

"Come here," she told him, pushing up her sleeves. He obeyed. "This is a belladona bush," she explained, gesturing for him to kneel with her. "We are going to prune it."

He nodded, obeying her instructions as she lectured him on everything there was to know about plants. His mind was quiet. Passive. It soaked in all details without discrimination, rejecting none.

"Repeat back to me what I just said," she told him, as if irritated that he was not listening.

"You said it can be used to dilate the pupils and allow examination of the eyes for illnesses; or in questionable cosmetic pursuits to make the gaze more enchanting. The exact administration for either purpose should be a dosage of only two droplets of a solution prepared from no more that one part mature extract from the leaves to every-"

She planted her hands on her hips and he trailed off, glancing briefly down at her and then looking uncertainly down at the herbs. A moment passed in silence.

"Well perhaps this is not a vain exercise after all," she decided. "This plant over here is milk thistle."


	11. Autumn

It had been ten weeks; two and a half months; heading into the winter season. It was getting cold out; cold enough that the young man had to breathe on his hands whenever he was outside and rub them against one another.

The witch was inclined to head out often from the cottage in the course of a week, returning with snared rabbits, materials, or else tasks crossed off a mental checklist he knew little of. Sometimes she left with herbal preparations and did not return with them. He did not ask many questions. Always she paused to warn him: "Do not stray from the cottage grounds." Usually she had instructions for tasks she needed handled in the midterm.

He didn't ask the reasons for these tasks, but he had the impression that she was stocking up on supplies for winter. Why she needed so many herbs, he did not know; but she had stocked up on tinder which needed to be dried, and he now spent most evenings canning, pickling, smoking, salting, or drying various foodstuffs. At present he was milling dark grains with a small quern. Behind him, the Wychlaran was hard at work over some textiles.

His mind must have wandered, because he found himself drawing sigils in the fresh brown powder. A creaking floorboard signaled the witch had stood. He realized what he was doing and quickly smeared the powder out, and breathed in slowly. "Finally. Hmm, turn about," she called to him. "Let us see if this fits thee."

She was holding up a new coat of oiled buckskin, with a lining spun woven from spun goat-hair. For a moment, he involuntarily recalled the soft touch of red silk. Then he craved the garment she was holding with everything in him. When he stood, she helped him put his arms through it and then settled it onto his shoulders. The goat hair made for amazing insulation, and his body temperature rose. He had expected it to itch, but it seemed she had lined the areas around the hood, neck, and hands with rabbit fur for just that reason.

"There, this should keep thee from freezing this winter." she said, stepping in front of him and adjusting it about his shoulders. "So scrawny... Art thou warm?"

"Yes," he murmured, watching her face. "Thank you. I do not deserve this."

She grunted. "Bah. It should buy me time to make thee proper boots and gloves," she agreed. "If the insulation gets wet, thou needeth dry it before a fire; or it will smell musky ever after. I will show thee how to keep the leather in good condition, or oil it if need be."

"I will learn to take care of it," he promised, comfortable for the first time in weeks. _Good clothing is no small matter out in the world._ The witch seemed pleased with his response, and patted him on the shoulder before turning to retrieve her own cloak.

"Good. With that finished, I need to head out to attend to a few matters."

"How long will you be gone?" he asked her. She usually liked hot blueberry tea upon her return.

She sighed. "A full day at least." After a moment, she threw him a wry grin. "No shocking surprises this time, please."

The young man straightened up, looking at her uncertainly. He felt a tenseness then, or perhaps a trepidation. For him, the days flew by without past or future, and the Wychlaran was his only point of reference. A few hours of absence gave him time to complete tasks. But days? "What... what should I do with that time?" he asked.

"Maintain the cottage and see to thy chores," she told him, walking over to the fireplace and poking through the cinders with a fire tong. "Can thou read Rashemi?"

"Yes," he answered. "Well enough."

She drew out some charcoal from the fire and then quickly moved over to a table and scribbled out a list of tasks. Looking at them, the young man felt a little more calm; there was no way he could finish before she returned, and so at least he would keep busy. Still, an uncomfortable sensation nagged at him. "Your trip," he asked, "is it dangerous?"

The Wychlaran looked at him in surprise. Then she laughed. "For others, perhaps," she told him. "For me? No. The Orchards are my home, and I know every twig."

The young man accepted this, running his thumbs over the soft rabbit fur at his coat sleeves. That she had sewn it such for his comfort was very meaningful. He was dependent on her for every aspect of his survival; there was no matter on which she was not the highest authority.


	12. Familiarity

As he paced and cleaned anxiously into the wee hours, the young man found his hostess had left out a bottle of nightshade syrup with a measuring spoon for him to find. He trembled upon seeing it, feeling irresponsible and helpless. Then, like a child in desperate need of guidance, he took up the medicine and measured himself a careful dosage. Shakily, he settled down his broom and looked around the room. The sight of his own palette sent illogical strands of fear writhing through his belly.

With a strangled breath, he turned and picked his way over to her bed. He climbed in under the furs and feathers, and hugged her pillow to his face. Hopefully she would never know he'd done such a strange thing; but the smell of her was comforting and he needed it. The nightshade knocked him out before half an hour had elapsed.

The Wychlaran returned late on the second day after her departure. He'd ended up taking the syrup that even too, so he was wide awake when she arrived.

She settled down her staff, pulled off her cloak, and thanked him for the tea he handed her. As she sat down in a chair to catch her breath, she asked him to pull out several of her herbal concoctions. While his back was turned she rolled up her sleeve, and when he turned around he saw that her arm was pitted through with wounds that looked acidic in nature.

"You said it was not dangerous!" he accused loudly.

The Wychlaran blinked up at him, surprised by the outburst from her otherwise mellow 'guest.' He turned a funny shade of red, and looked down. She broke out laughing and then waved him forward. "Dangerous," she told him gently, "implies a very real chance one might suffer _irreparable_ harm. Pull out the wool bandages... This is in need of mending."

He nodded, though a lingering anxiety left him wondering how plant matter could restore such a badly damaged limb.

She instructed him in how to prepare the dressings, and though he glanced once or twice at the acid burns, he did as he was bid. She sipped her tea almost nonchalantly, though surely the injury must have stung. Perhaps she had consumed pain killers? When the bandages were ready, she settled her tea down and dipped her fingers into an 'anointing oil' he had brought her.

"Apply it just so... There," she winced. "In the name of the spirits and the Three; I ask thee for thy blessing in restoring what has been lost." Her words turned more archaic, and though he could pull out a term here or there he did not quite understand her. As she spoke, and flicked droplets of oil over his handiwork he felt the telltale hum of energy under his fingertips.

_The herbs... she is using them as a divine magic tool, _he realized. She continued her chanting for another minute, and then nodded and gently capped the oil. "Will it take long to mend?" he asked her.

"A few days," she told him.

A second outburst leaked from his mouth that day: "Then herbal magic is slow. Why study it; other magics heal faster."

She raised a brow. "It was no 'other' magic which saved your life the day I found you," she told him, "so perhaps you should not be critical."

On reflection, he had no idea why he'd criticized _her_. Perhaps he did not like to think of her as having limitations or vulnerabilities. Perhaps he merely wanted that arm fixed. He could still see the wound in his mind's eye. "I spoke without wit," he apologized solemnly.

"Well... At least you _spoke_," she was mollified, and her voice sounded amused. He glanced up at her, uncertain what she meant. "You spend most of your hours in silence. Mental silence too, I think. As if perpetually exhausted."

He shifted, looking back at her bandaged arm. He licked chapped lips. "The Wychlaran has never pressed me to talk," he said slowly.

"After awhile, I didn't see the need; you have always been inclined to behave yourself." She sat back, taking a deep breath. "Do you think you have yet paid the debt of your survival to me? I spent very few resources at the time; and you have certainly saved me a great deal of trouble since then. It seems a fair trade has occurred."

The words made him feel cold. "If I say yes... do I have to leave?" he asked.

"You don't want to depart this cottage? Rasheman?" she wondered.

The young man shook his head. "I have nowhere at all to go." He looked up to her. Her eyes were a yellow hazel color; and in certain lighting she could seem cat-like.

She waved a hand, dismissive of his claim. "You could go _anywhere_. This is not a place well-suited to Thayvians. There are no ambitions to be pursued here; no wealth or prestige to gain; no cities to conquer."

"I have had my fill of conquered cities," he said, lowering his eyes again. He felt frantic, suddenly, and his voice was a whisper: "Do I have to leave?"

The Wychlaran was silent for a long time. His muscle tensed as he sat there, closing tightly around nerves and causing stress and pain. His heart rate accelerated. He was asking this of a self-proclaimed hermit; a woman who chose to live alone and eschewed the company of her fellow witches and indeed all of her countrymen. _He_ was an outsider, and from an enemy country; To impose on her space further seemed foolish.

But she lifted up her tea and shook her head. "No, child," the Wychlaran told him quietly. "You do not have to leave."


	13. Fosterling

The Wychlaran watched her 'captive' thoughtfully.

The boy had steady hands. He worked with deftness at even the most minute tasks, and once she'd taught him to use a needle she found that each stitch was measured, straight, and precise. He was observant, careful, and patient. He was quiet, and the animals had grown comfortable in his presence. Non migratory songbirds no longer hid when he went outside.

'Captive' was unsuitable word for him; as was 'guest' or even 'boarder.' The correct term might have been 'fosterling,' which in Rashemi was a close derivative of 'apprentice' and was typically used to describe children of poor families who were sent to be raised by skilled laborers in order to help out with chores and learn a trade.

His hair had grown two inches in length since arrival, and it was thin, black, and silky. His eyes were heavy-lidded, his nose was thin and aquiline, and his face in general was thin and triangular. He was but eight years her junior, but a boyishness lingered about his every attribute.

Not just his physical attributes either.

"How do you keep track of the days?" he asked her as he measured ingredients into sachets at her behest. "Of the year."

She tapped on an arrangement of quartz along the window sill. "It is three days till Samhain. Thou may know this as the feast of the dead."

He seemed to have known the festival was significant to Wychlaran, and to have anticipated its approach, because he nodded. His immediate question was: "Will you be traveling?"

The witch smiled at what was fast becoming a predictable quirk of her fosterling: he did not like to be left alone. She was starting to consider bringing him out on her more mundane errands. "I go out for Samhain, but I do not travel."

This relaxed him to some extent. She couldn't help but tease:

"Samhain is my favorite time of the year. It is when the spirits and ghosts come out and wander the orchards, howling at the moon and weeping tears of blood, begging for anyone to give them rest. When the corpses of drowned children and hanged men rise up from the earth as lumps of mud and ichor, and stumble about looking to crawl into the bellies of living women to be reincarnated anew."

The Thayvian paused. Then he turned about in his chair and eyed her strangely. "Are you telling stories to try and scare me?" he wondered.

"No," she answered truthfully. His eyes widened slightly. She laughed. "I typically spend Samhain morning visiting with the hags and other fae in a social fashion. The evenings, I spend alone, meditating in the forest. I am never back till morning. By now thou should know my common warning whenever I head out?"

" 'Do not leave the cottage grounds,' " he echoed.

"That is doubly in effect for the Feast of the Dead. And I assure thee, there are things in the forest who will sense thee here, and which will try to lure thee out."

He raised a slender brow. "What sort of things?"

"All manner of nefarious illusion-spinner and and shape-shifting spirit," the woman told him. "Whatever thou seeth, do not leave. Take a spoonful of Nightshade if thou must and go straight to bed when night falls. This place is protected so that no magic can truly be worked against thee, and there is even a dream catcher over thy bed."

He shifted. "It is truly that dangerous?" he wondered incredulously.

"To menfolk. Boy we are in Rasheman," she told him, "where the spirits dance on even the sunniest days. We are in one of the oldest and most twisted forests in Rasheman; the cottage is built on a ley line; there are ponds and mushroom circles and gnarled holes beneath tree roots which lead to the Feywild scattered all over the region; and there are no less than three hag covens nearby." He frowned. "Do not leave the cottage grounds for an instant. And most certainly not for a simple trick, like the sounds of screams or battle."


	14. Samhain

The young man hugged his cloak tighter around himself as he looked off into the Orchards. One of the goats, Nana, stood next to him. Dusk was falling, and the wind was picking up. It was times like these when he felt at his lowest: when all he could do was wait. At best he was impotent; at worst he was a liability. He wasn't sure who to pray to for her safe return.

_The only reason you want her to come back is because you need someone to take care of you, _an internal voice accused venomously. He cringed against it, feeling selfish. _If she died today, you would also perish. _

He would have been useless even equipped with magic, and had no skills to speak of. _That is not precisely true,_ he thought wretchedly as Nana came up to nose his fingers._ I can make very good goat butter. _She bleated. _Perhaps I could become a shepherd. _His thoughts felt incredibly fragmented.

Nana was the first animal in all the world to have ever voluntarily approached him, and apparently living proof that animals would look to anyone who fed them. He sighed and scratched gently around her horns. "Come back safely, _senneta_," he pleaded helplessly of the night air, and then he turned to head towards the cottage. He frowned when the other goats, clustered around the cottage, suddenly all jumped in unison and bounded skittishly towards their pen.

A whisper like human words rushed across the clearing. The hair on the back of his neck turned on end, and he looked back to see a woman all in red standing before the cottage gate. His eyes widened. She smiled warmly at him, and held out her hands.

{Brother,} Leonlai chuckled. {We've _finally_ found you.}

The fog parted. Other shapes stepped forward, also cloaked in red. {Is that him? By Bane, we've been looking for you across half Faerun!} his mother chastised. {What happened?}

{Apparently he's been hiding out in a Rashemi shepherd's hovel,} one of his brothers laughed.

The young man looked up into their faces as his mother waved him forward and his sister laughed. Then he stumbled backwards and looked down to see Nana shoving him away from the gate. He reached out to the animal instinctively, grabbing hold of one of her horns. Nana surged past, spinning him around and leading him forcefully away from the gate. He stumbled to keep up.

{What are you doing?} his sister exclaimed.

{Quickly, come, let's get out of this damnable country!}

{What- Is he bewitched?!}

Nana led him further and further back towards the cottage. Behind him, his family continued to shout. When he and the goat had both reached the threshold he grabbed firmly to the door frame and waited. Nana stood there, contemplating whether to leap up and headbutt him. He bit his lower lip, because this was something he _needed_ to do.

Behind him, the shouting continued. And continued. The voices pleaded. Then they ordered. They threatened his privileges. But not one of them stepped into the cottage grounds. The seconds stretched out into minutes, and then into fractions of an hour. The cacophony did not stop.

Tears slipped down the young man's face. He wiped his face with his sleeve, took in a few shuddering breaths to calm himself, and then reached down to scratch around Nana's horns. "Come on," he whispered to the goat under the cajoling and demands of his 'family', patting the animal's rump to get her into the cottage. "You can sleep inside tonight."

Nanas probably made for warm pillows, anyway; and if he was going to end up a shepherd, he might as well get used to the idea.

* * *

><p><strong>Mulhorandi:<strong> senneta

**Faerun Translation:  
><strong>1. (formal form of address for family member) Elder sister.  
>2. (formal form of address for high ranking female clergy, ie: 'mother' with nuns) Sister; High Priestess; Reverend Mother.<br>3. (colloquial) Term of respect for a wise woman who are typically unrelated to the speaker.

**How I Built It Using Middle Egyptian  
><strong>- snt: 1. sister 2. aunt  
>- aA: 1. great 2. plentiful 3. senior<p> 


	15. A Mask

The Wychlaran looked exhausted. She reached the cottage early that morning while he was milking the goats. He paused for a moment, to make sure it was really her. Then when she'd entered the grounds, he swiftly moved to her side.

"Are you hurt?" he asked, offering her a shoulder to lean on. She took it.

"No," she laughed, "just worn. It is good to have a helping hand to lean on, I'll admit."

"You seem cold," he noted as he guided her to the doorway. "I have a kettle boiling."

"Thou always doeth," she smiled. "I'll take my tea in bed, and thanks be to thee. I need to _sleep_."

He'd seen proof enough that she'd not been exaggerating about Rasheman, the Orchards, and Samhain. Why she'd chosen to remain outside was a mystery to him, but he did not question her at present. Instead he set some tea to steeping and helped her get her cloak and traveling clothes off. She was very cold. He added a few logs to the fire. A few minutes passed in silence.

"Why does my bed smell of wet goat?" she asked him abruptly.

_Oh. Caught._ "I... I let one of the goats inside, and she climbed onto the bed for awhile once," he told her. "She was keeping me company. I'm sorry."

The witch smiled in amusement and did not open her eyes. She waved a hand dismissively, and enjoyed her blankets. A short while later he brought her some tea, and she thanked him and sipped on it.

"What did you do out there?" he asked her. "I saw things... Images, or ghosts, like you said. It was dangerous out there."

"I communed with the spirits, heard out last requests, and settled disputes," she told him. "All in a day's work for my profession, I think." He fixed her with a doubtful expression and she winked. "I will be fine, little worrywart."

The ringing of a loud gong sounded across the cottage. The young man nearly leaped out of his skin. The witch went still for a moment. Then she sat up clumsily and threw blankets off her legs, settling her tea down. "They would not _dare_," She hissed.

"Who? What was that?" he asked, though with a dread building in his gut he already knew.

"Alarms," she snapped, quickly grabbing for her boots. "Someone has dispelled my most poignant defensive wards, and there are only certain individuals who would need to do so. Get me my staff!"

He obeyed. "Are we under attack?!" He knew the Wychlaran to be capable of some very interesting forms of magic, but she was no warrior.

"Get down," she told him, standing up with heavy help from the staff. She hobbled over to the mantle place. "Stay away from the door and windows! They think me weak now? Bah!"

"I must be able to help!" he protested, pursuing her. "You are exhausted, and if you go out there-!"

She whirled on him. He came up short, and swallowed at her intense expression. Then he bowed his head, and sank to his knees beside the fireplace. She huffed, and then placed her hand against the stones and murmured words of power. He glanced up in her in surprise, and then his eyes widened as she extracted a bone white mask from within the stone of the mantelpiece.

Without a word she twirled it about and latched it over her face. Its mane of blue heron feathers spiraled over her mahogany hair, and she seemed a completely alien entity with it on.

_You are a Hathran? _he wondered in shock. Such a thing seemed impossible; Hathran were the elite leaders of the Wychlaran, and there were a scant two hundreds of them in all the world. How could a druid numbering a scant two dozen years have earned that sort of title, much less living as a hermit specializing in herbal magics?

"Stay down," she repeated to him, and then she turned and shuffled quickly out the entrance of the cottage.

He stayed there. Kneeling. Helpless. Vulnerable. His arms shook. He clutched the belt knife at his side. Then he bolted to his feet and came up against the doorway, peeking out. She was exiting the cottage grounds. He took in a deep breath to steady himself. The moment she left his sight, he drew his belt knife and darted out from the cottage door.


	16. The Sewing Needle

The young man watched quietly from the fen bushes. Ahead of them the earth had been scorched and layered in ash, and it felt as though someone had cleared the land of foliage intentionally.

The man standing at the far extent was obviously no true human. His face was gaunt and his eyes had an otherworldly and slightly bestial taint to them. He gave a grin which stretched from ear to ear as the Hathran witch stepped forward to address him. "Thou art bold, mortal," he purred, "to step out from thine refuge when so weakened."

The Wychlaran planted the butt of her staff in the ground. "Igathor," she frowned, and by the tone of her voice she seemed disappointing. Perhaps this was some form of betrayal? "Thou knoweth very little," she told him, "and thine ignorance shows. I am far from weakened, and thou treads dangerous ground just by presuming so."

The man barked out a laugh. "How _dare_ thee, bug," he chuckled mirthfully. "How dare thou pretend at cowing _me_ when thou can barely stand? The witch who hast always strutted about as if these forests were her, she who ought to have_ bowed_ before _me _on arrival, she thinks herself mighty? I have tolerated the indignity of thine otherwise harmless posturing, but I grow bored of thee, witch; and thou hast offended me."

"These are bold statements of power from one who believes he must strike me at my weakest," the Wychlaran observed. "Perhaps thou senses I am more than I seem. I doubt thou is as confident as thou claims. Turn back, Igathor. If thou presumeth to betray me, I will not forgive thee."

"I never thought thou would," the man assured her, and then his body turned tar-like and grew rapidly in diameter and length as he resumed what must have been his natural form. Scales protruded from the grime. Horns crested up through it. Teeth formed from the spread maws of dripping ichor.

Igator coiled there, a great serpentine beast, with his tail spiraling behind him for a hundred yards. His jaws were large enough to have swallowed cattle whole, and his mighty scales were so thick that each might have individually served as a man's shield. His fins and whiskers were pitted and tattered, and a horse-like mane of seaweed hair lined the full length of his spine. His tail was a glaive three yards in length, and he sported six antlers befitting the most ancient of elks. He was green: every variety and shade of green. His hair was the blue of algae; his fins were lime; his body was mottled and dripping with moss and marsh grass.

The Thayvian gaped in awe, fascination, and horror. {A Lindwurm...?} He breathed; and he stood up to get a better look because this monster was a _Dragon _and he had never seen a creature so magnificent or terrible in all his life.

_"Did thou think I would forgive thee!?" _Igathor bellowed in Draconic. _"Did thou think I would forgive the harm thou hast done onto my kin!? Look upon me and tremble, witch!"_

The Hathran settled her staff into the ground, and drew a threaded, bone sewing needle from her belt. The tip was hooked. "I tremble not, oh wyrm," she told him, "and that should give thee pause. Gaze upon me and understand that, to take, one must first give. Force my hand and thou will perish here."

_"Such insolence! Such disgusting insolence from a murderer, a pretender, a bug!"_

The witch shook her head and began to murmur and gesture. She was going to face him? She was mad! The Thayvian darted forward with a shout: "No! Run, please! Dragonscale repels magic!"

The witch tensed, but did not stop casting. Her hands shimmered. The dragon swiveled his head around to look at the distraction. _"My, my. What is this? Thou hast a waif of thine own?" _he purred in realization. _"Oh, this will be better. Better than thy death even will be." _He turned towards the young man, who skid to a halt.

There was a rush of blue light, and then the witch held a long pearly white harpoon. The length hummed with waves the color of moonlight. She drew back the weapon. "Run!" she shouted.

The boy stumbled backwards, and tripped over a rock. The Lindwurm grinned, and then slithered straight for him. Over the wet sound of scales on ash, he heard a high-pitched, ghastly wail. The bone lance shot through the air like a streak of white light. IT slammed into the Lindwurm's winding flank, burst out three yards down the coil. The dragon boomed out a surprised roar. The young man gaped.

_How did she hit him? By summoning a magical weapon, fool! To avoid the spell resistance but- but a weapon of such a calibre!? _He grit his teeth and then wormed onto his belly. _Stop looking at it! Stop looking at it, it has a mind-affecting aura! Move! Move!_

Igathor whirled about to stare at the witch, who held on to loops of silvery thread which trailed out to the tail end of the harpoon. Beneath her mask, her eyes were glowing a verdant green. The dragon exhaled a spurt of poisonous yellow fumes.

The young man scrambled to his feet.

_"Thou will regret this,"_ he growled.

The witch jerked on the thread. The harpoon slammed back through the dragon the way it had came, the barbs tearing through flesh and buckling dragonscale. It changed from a lance into a bone needle as it went, and the witch lifted a hand to catch it. It was wet with mildly acidic dragon's blood and tattered bits of flesh, but the first thing she did was put it into her mouth and lick it clean.

The Lindwurm roared out in draconic, and huge thorns and brambles exploded up for dozens of feet between the two casters, twisting as high as the trees with stalks and thorns bigger than a man's forearm. Leaves withered, their energy leaching out to mend the beast's flank. Then he whirled on the Thayvian, who was bolting through the foliage to try and get around the wall of thorns.

The young man heard cracking trees, and the thunderous noise of violent pursuit. A huge trunk crashed to his left, and then to his right. He leaped off a small rise of dirt into the space beneath a tree's roots, and then jets of acid were blowing through the air overhead, dissolving bark, wood, foliage, and animals alike. Trees crumbled every which way. He held silent as thorns, and debris burst up from the falling bodies, and a rain of diffused acid sprinkled down with burning leaves to scald his hands and face.

Then the dragon roared so near it made the young man spin about in panic. Igathor was right there, barreling down on him. The dragon reared up like a serpent, jaws spreading wide as his momentum carried him forward for the kill.

A singular, disturbing, loud,_ ripping_ noise, wet and grotesque, tore audibly through the air.

The dragon shrieked and contorted in surprise. Another ripping sound followed. In shock, the Thayvian saw that the Lindwurm's flesh was peeling back from his belly, up the sides of his flank near where the bone lance had struck it. A woman's chanting echoed through the forest. The Hathran strode calmly forward. She had the bone needle clutched between her teeth, and her chin was burned in rivulets where dragon blood had railed over her was holding a dagger flush against her bare arm, and had already flayed a square inch of her own flesh off. The severed skin hung curling from the far edge of the wound.

_"Wh-what have you-?!" _Igathor sputtered.

The Mulan boy stood there, eyes wide, mouth agape. As he watched, the witch cut another inch of her own skin off.

The dragon cried out as another tearing sound rippled over their heads. His flanks gave off disgusting crackles and pops and his scales writhed as if possessed by a will of their own.

She cut the scrap of flesh free, and her arm by then was bleeding profusely.

With a scream to end all screams, the dragon's skin unfolded from the musculature of his body, and tore itself free in its entirety. It came loose with all his scales, all his hair, the exterior layer of his antlers, and the outer keratin of his nails.

Igathor flailed madly in pain, leaving splatters of blood and grime all over the earth. He began to call on healing magic, which sapped the trees around him of life and caused their fruits and leaves to decay and fall from the air.

_You are not a druid, _the Thayvian realized, covering his mouth and looking from the skinned Lindwurm to the Hathran. _You are an archmagus...? _You_ are a-a _necromancer_?_

_"My scales!" _the Lindwurm screamed. _"My scales! My flesh! I will unmake you! I will UNMAKE YOU!"_

The witch held up the scrap of flesh and breathed over it. The detached skin, which until that moment had been dangling about in the remaining tree branches, suddenly contorted. Dark energies sailed up to it from the earth. Ashe and dissolved, drained, or decayed plant matter floated up to it. The skin writhed and twisted and flailed madly. Then it moved as if possessed, flaring out like some kind of octopus and grasping onto the branches, its scales twisted to point outwards like a hedgehog's spines.

Igathor, who was regenerating at least the interior layer of his flesh, whirled on them. He took in a deep breath. The witch tied her flayed skin into a knot.

The dragon's reanimated skin leaped down onto his head. There it wrapped about his throat like a rope or constrictor snake, and pulled itself taut. The dragon choked, sputtered, and coughed. He twisted and contorted under the hold, and then lifted up his glaived tail to try and hack the skin free. He cut the skin; and he cut himself worst. He bled out, and the skin smeared itself greedily in his fluids. He writhed. Then poisonous vapors burst out of his newly forming pores and his cloaca.

Igathor wove back and forward for a moment. Then his eyes rolled and he collapsed to the ground with a boom.

The witch did not speak. She walked past the young man. She strode calmly through the forest, though her legs and arms were shaking. She walked all the way up to the dragon's mighty jaws, where he struggled vainly against suffocation and death. For a long moment, the witch merely stared at him. Then she shook her head and reached out to his brow. "What a senseless waste of life," she said, before murmuring in draconic.

The Lindwurm flailed. He lifted up his tail one final time. The young man cried out in warning. The dragon began to scream, but never finished. His breath died away as his body sloughed apart; His bones burst open, and his organs tumbled away, and all the veins and tubes which had connected them detached themselves. His muscular layers peeled open and apart from one another. The glaive dripped free of his skeleton, and plummeted into the earth he'd once rested on.

She dropped the piece of flesh. The dragon's skin lost its reanimating force, and unraveled. Where once there had been a dragon, all that remained now were giblets.

A long moment passed in silence. Then the Hathran turned slowly to look at the young man, and her eyes glowed vibrant green from the depths of her featureless and bone-white mask. "I told thee to stay inside," she murmured. "I told thee to stay where it was safe..."

The Thayvian swallowed past a hard lump in his throat. His palms were moist, and his whole body was quaking. Somewhere along the way, he had even pissed himself. Despite all of these things, he took a step towards her, and then another, and another. "Are you okay?" he whispered.

She shook her head. "No," she admitted. Then her eyes closed, and her legs gave out from under her.


	17. Stop the Bleeding

The young man staggered forward and dropped into the ash and crisp leaves at the Wychlaran's side. He leaned shakily over her, touching her skin. She was ice cold.

_A mage. A necromancer._

"B-bleeding. Stop the bleeding," he whispered to himself, as this time he knew what to do. He pressed his palms firmly over her arm wound. His stomach felt bottomless, or filled with butterflies.

Then the memories hit him.

Hard.

They built up behind his eyes like a searing tidal wave; a warband of screams; demanding his recollection. He cried out in shock at them, as Samhain's ghosts and the smell of magic _forced_ them through the fragile membranes of his healing psyche and dragged them brutally out into the open.

They were agonizing; not because of what they contained, but because of how alien they sat in his mind.

-he could feel the chaos and the thrill of battle; he could hear the _screams, the screams, the unearthly screams. _He saw the booms of lightning, and heard the thunderous crackle of falling concrete and stone-

-wraiths were in the halls. He exterminated those servants who had soaked the ghoul assault-

-retreating through the halls. Things had gone wrong, so wrong. His heart was racing, but not with excitement. Not after what he'd seen happen to-

-saw Leonlai's face, with her look of contemptuous, cocksure fury as she took the kill shot on their assailant. Pain. His vision was blurred. He lay there; the smell of burnt flesh in the air; the interloper's, and his own-

-stepped over him and kept going. She was older; but he was male. In her position, he would have done the same-

-his heartbeat was erratic. It began to slow-

It stopped.

_I came into this world as a devil, born to a prestigious and well-respected family of devils. __I died. __And that was the end of my tale._

Reality came back to him, along with silence and clarity.

He felt his Hathran's pulse under his fingertips, and the texture of her clothing. Not silk, but fur and hair. His hands had moved of their own accord, independently from his mind, and he found that he had somehow staunched the bleeding. That did not yet mean she was safe. _I need to get her inside. Now. _

It occurred to him, with sudden and startling clarity, that he could _fix_ this. And then he felt emotional energy welling up within his chest cavity and along his arms where he was touching her. Had she not shown him everything he needed to know? His mind ricocheted rapidly between each herb and jar and preparation; as he mentally tracked down where each one of them was within the cottage.

_First, the wound. Pressure. Then, heat; clothing; blankets. A draught to replenish lost fluids. Next, proper cleaning. Then, finalized dressing. She is too heavy to carry; I will have to drag her as best I can._

The sound of bleating goats nearly sent him into a panic, and he looked frantically around for signs of danger. When he saw nothing, he drew his belt knife free and crouched low over her prone form; his anchor point; his magus. Nothing was coming from the north, nor the east, nor- He felt a rush of wind and lifted his head in alarm. A large, ominous, and winged creature was gliding into the clearing.

A sledge dangled from its back feet.


	18. Sharing Names

When the Dusk Dragon awoke, it was to a throbbing headache, an empty stomach, and the bemused realization she'd contracted a menagerie.

The first and most obvious present was Nüdnisé, her companion, who was curled around the back of her head. The dire bat's torso was the size of an adult man's, and her wings were so large that one of them currently draped over nearly the entire length of the bed.

But then in addition to Nüdnisé, there was goat on the witch's left, and a juvenile Thayvian boy tucked under her right shoulder with his arm flung across her midsection. The Wychlaran was inclined to laugh incredulously at all this, until she recalled the events that had led to such conditions. Then she winced at the chilled exhaustion in her bones.

_Oh. Oh that aches._

The witch breathed in a soft hiss and then lifted her hand to rest her fingertips against her fosterling's hair. Their clothing had been washed and hung up to dry; she had been redressed, and he was again in clothing much too large for his slender frame. It made him look smaller than he was.

For a moment she felt endeared. Then a fluttering sensation rippled through her chest, and she felt frightened. "Thou did not flee from me," she whispered, suddenly moved by his closeness.

He shifted, and blinked slowly awake. When he saw her, he sat quickly upright. "You are awake," he realized, pushing blankets off of himself.

She shifted and winced, nodding. "Thou tended to me?"

"Hold on, don't move." He clambered off of the bed and hurried over to remove a kettle from where it had been keeping warm on simmering coals. As she looked around, she saw bandages, blood, scissors and pots of herbs scattered all over the nearby tables. He came back with the water and made her fresh the; not blueberry, but with a premade sachet for warmth and health.

She made to sit up and he reached down to help her. Nüdnisé shifted and then crawled sleepily up under her neck and shoulders to support her, licking nervously at her neck. The witch sipped her tea thankfully for a moment. Her fosterling sat beside her.

The witch watched him. When she had taken a few sips she lowered the mug and frowned. "Thou looks at me differently now. But not with the fear or revulsion I expected..."

The young man peered down at her almost curiously. After a moment, he shook his head. "You saved my life from a rampaging dragon, at the cost of your own health... all while presuming I'd be so ungrateful I'd abandon you there to die?"

She shifted. "Well I did not count on fainting," she retorted a little harshly. "And thou should not have been outside in the first place! Did I not warn thee profusely? Why was it this time thou chose to disobey me? Thou could be dead at this moment had I acted slower or with less conviction!"

The boy smiled at her radiantly, such that she could see his teeth; and she thought how she had never seen him smile like that before. "Well," he said matter-of-factly, leaning back to cross his legs and watching her with shuttered eyes. "I did not count on you being able to skin a Lindwurm with a sewing needle, _senneta_. I am prepared to forgive you for fainting if you are prepared to forgive me for ignorance."

The witch blinked rapidly, staring over at him in surprise. He seemed almost plucky, as if layers of gloom had been torn down from over top his head. Startled, she lifted a hand up to him, and brushed her knuckles thoughtfully against his cheek. His expression softened. He watched her face intently.

"Thou doest not fear the witch in the woods," she wondered at him. "I am not accustomed to the tolerance of menfolk."

His brows furrowed gently. He looked from Nüdnisé to her almost thoughtfully. Then he shook his head and lifted the blankets up higher to keep her warm. "I adore you, _senneta_," he told her. "Thank you for taking me into your household that day. I do not mean for reviving me, exactly; but for letting me stay to work. You saved my life."

The Dusk Dragon frowned and shook her head. "What is the meaning of 'senneta'?"

The young man shook his head. "I say it to mean 'teacher,'" he told her.

She did not seem to know what to feel about that. After a long moment, and in a very gentle voice, she abruptly asked: "What is thy name?"

He paused. The question must have startled him, because he looked around as if searching for the answer. Indeed it startled her that it had never previously seemed important to ask. A moment later, he turned back to her and answered: "Homen." Then after a brief delay, he reached out and started cleaning up pots of salve. "Is there something I should call you?"

"Thou may call me 'senneta.' Or thou may call me what other Rashemi call me," she told him softly, lost in thought.

"What do they call you?" he prodded gently, realizing she was very tired and needed to rest again soon.

"The Dusk Dragon," she explained; "_Sheilaktar_."


	19. Stick Fighting

A head appeared in his vision, silhouetted against the light. "Did neither thy father nor thy mother set out to teach thee basic stick fighting as a child?" the Wychlaran asked him, leaning over him with a grin. Her off arm was still recovering from its necromantic exertions, and he'd helped her to bind it up in a sling till it mended. "I am not exactly moving at my fastest these days..."

The young man winced slightly, and not because of his bruises or ego. A week ago, words like 'mother' or 'father' would have passed over his head without sensation.

But since the incident with the Lindwurm, previously dormant memories had been rising up to bother him with unsettling frequency. They were unplesant to imbibe largely because they did not feel as if they belonged to him.

The Hathran offered him a hand up, and he took it with a grunt. He steadied himself and then looked down at the walking sticks they were each holding. "I might be better with a dagger than a staff," he admitted.

"Well then, pick up a smaller stick and show me," she decided, and looked about to find a dagger-sized implement for herself. When they had both been appropriately rearmed, he moved to engage her.

She did not block him. Instead, she dropped her own weapon, reached out towards him, captured his wrist, twisted the bones, forced him to release the stick, and hauled him down onto his back in the dirt.

Homen blinked up at her dazedly. "You are better than me at everything," he concluded firmly.

Sheilaktar laughed. "I am considerably older than thee!" she pointed out. "And rougher. I have all thine years and then half as many again, and speant many hunting for my own meals..."

As he thought of how he had speant his years, the Thayvian involuntarily realized there was a large subset of skills at which he was likely much more proficient than his Hathran. None were talents he wished to boast about.

He took her hand as she helped him up again. "Do you still hunt?" he wondererd. "Isn't that different from trapping?"

"It is," she agreed. "And I do from time to time, when I have need for different leather, or antler, or when there are more mouths to feed."

"What weapon do you use then?" he queried. "Or does your companion help you?"

"Nüdnisé is a vegetarian," she explained, "and hasn't a hunting instinct in her body. She would have to hibernate through the winter for lack of fruit had she not me to can peaches for her. No, I use the javalin." Then she realized that Homen had never actually left the cottage grounds nor seen the rest of the Orchards. She simply hadn't let him. "If it interests thee, I can teach thee to hunt."

He nodded eagerly; this was certainly an important skill to alleviate his helplessness.

"Very well. But then thou are to do as I bid thee, and to follow my strictest order when out in the Orchards! I will tolerate no foolish heroics, dare-devillry, or showing off; and certainly not from a petite Foreign whelp who could be felled by a stiff wind."

Homan smiled then, and almost slyly at that. "You have my word that I will follow your example faithfully, senneta."

She eyed him with hooded eyes, a brow raised. "Art thou implying something?"

He smiled quietly at the ground. "Of course not, senneta! I shall endeavor to mimic your every caution."

Sheilaktar could not help herself. She struggled for a moment to remain glaring reproachfully at him. Then a grin split across her face. "Fair enough," she chuckled. "But thou art going to be terrible with the javalin, I warn thee now."


	20. Small Questions

Snow had come overnight. They had gone to bed with colored leaves still dangling from the trees, and woken up to find a four inch coating of white had blanketed the land. The flakes were still falling.

"Senneta, did you learn magic from books?" the boy wondered aloud. He was glad to be turned away from her then, because he felt nervous.

Sheilaktar glanced at him curiously but was distracted by the sight of the flurries out the window before him. "In part. Why doest thou ask?" Her voice was casual.

Still, Homen bit his lower lip, forcing his hand to be steady as he worked on the buckskin gloves he'd been making. Obviously he could not outright inquire whether she drew her power from the arcane or divine magic spheres. After a moment, he gave a shrug. "Oh, I thought all wizards had books."

"Witches have a greater oral tradition than _wizards,_" was her haughty reply. "Life cannot be experienced through books. Mm. I want to check my snares," Sheilaktar told him abruptly, coming up beside him to peer out into the white. "This will get worse by evening."

"How could this be worse?" the young man asked doubtfully, as he finished up the stitches on his new gloves. He was very proud of them, and they had provided ample distraction from his questionable questions.

His Hathran gave him a look suggesting he ought not to be tempting fate. "Clearly thou hast lived thine life in warmer climates than these." That made him bashful. "Thou may come with me."

He perked up immediately. Then, perhaps worried she might change her mind, he flit quickly over to his bed and began pulling his coat and his new rabbit fur boots on. The Wychlaran eyed him with amusement and reached out to her cloak. When she turned about she found him fully kit for outdoor activity, complete with his quiver of javalins.

"And what doest thou think thou will be doing with those?" she asked him.

"Just in case? For practice only?" he requested hopefully, and it was times like these he reminded her of his youth.

She sighed in acquiescence, trying to fasten her cloak with one hand. He shooed her fingers away and did it for her. She grumbled. "I am perfectly capable of handling my own cloak," the witch groused.

"You don't have to," he answered in his concise way, and then straightened out her shoulders. Briefly, he looked up at her face to see if she was ready to head out.

She scowled and ruffled his hair. He ducked a little and then smiled up through the attention. "Fine then, brazen child; keep up, and keep thy voice down. Not everything sleeps in winter. Make sure the goats have water before we leave."

"Yes, senneta," he obeyed, hurrying out the door. Sheilaktar watched him go and then glanced over to where four well-worn leather tomes on herbalism lay tucked up against pots and potions. They were the only books in her home. Her eyes narrowed, and she spayed her fingers thoughtfully over her mouth for a moment.

_Thou were asking me to explain why I have no obvious spellbook..._

She considered the scalds she'd found over his abdomen the day she'd carried him home, and once more she wondered at their origins.


	21. Dear

Homen set to plucking the duck with an excited fervor. Sheilaktar leaned against the mantelpiece, amused and still shaking her head.

"I still cannot believe thou actually hit that," she laughed. "Nor can I determine whether thee've a steady throwing arm or merely fool's luck."

He looked up at her briefly; just long enough for her to see the joyful pride on his face. Then he looked quickly down to his work, smiling. "Can we make soup?" he hoped.

"With cream," she agreed, standing up to fetch ingredients, "and sweet potatoes. Where have we put the celery?"

"Second jar on the top shelf to the right," he told her.

"Thank you, dear."

'Dear' was a new word. And a nice one, he thought. He plucked the bird and set water to boil. Nüdnisé roused from her afternoon nap and reached out to nibble the edge of his coat. He found her a few jarred cherries to nibble on.

Sheilaktar prepared the vegetables, glancing at him occasionally. "Homen," she called after a bit, because it was unfair to leave him ill informed. "I am going to be traveling for Midwinter. It is a very important day for Rashemi."

He looked to her thoughtfully. "Will you be gone long?"

"A week," she told him gently. "Midwinter, The Feast of the Mother, is a time of unity among the Wychlaran. Thousands will gather in Mulsantir to trade, weave stories, and participate in the ancient rituals of the season. It is a time for celebration even the most ornery of woodland hermits do not excuse themselves from."

The boy was quiet a moment. Then he nodded. "I cannot come?" he made sure.

"Not unless thou wants to become the Feast's main course," she teased with a wink.

He must have known she was joking, but he did not smile. "I understand, senneta. I will look after the cottage."

When Homen returned to preparing the duck, Sheilaktar watched his body language. He may have affected to appear calm about her departure, but his stiff gestures suggested anxiety or distress. It wasn't her imagination; he genuinely feared her absence. She knew she had been right to leave him sleeping draughts in the past, then.

Perhaps he simply did not want to be left alone. But then she wondered why he feared solitude more than he feared ghosts or Lindwurms. Perhaps he had lost someone while fleeing Thay, or multiple someones. He'd mentioned seeing ghosts during Samhain.

Sheilaktar frowned. Learning to deal with loss was a right of passage for any young person's transition to adulthood... But she was thankful her little fosterling had not ended up facing the world entirely alone. He was sweet tempered, and hard working, and a good child. By fate or fortune, she was glad she had saved him that day.

The Hathran looked down at her peeled potatoes. He would be alright in her absence, she assured herself. It was only a week, and her cottage was the safest location in all the Orchards.

Though Homen was not the only one who had previously been alone...


	22. That was an accident?

As Midwinter drew closer, Homen grew predictably agitated. He spent considerable effort trying to hide the signs; perhaps he was ashamed he could not keep his emotions in check. But the gloomy cloud following him grew steadily more obvious, and Sheilaktar set to thinking about how she might help him through it.

For her very first step, she continued to take him out of the cottage, even when the weather was poor and there was little chance the two of them would find game. She taught him about the dangers of the cold, how to build an impromptu shelter, and how to start an emergency fire. They wove a pair of wicker snow shoes for him, so that even tall drifts could not keep them inside.

It seemed to help, but now and then she caught sight of a dour expression on his face as he scanned the forest floor for tracks. "Homen," she called one morning. The boy looked up at her, but as usual he did not meet her gaze.

"It will only be a week," she reminded him.

His expression darkened. He looked away quickly and said nothing.

Sheilaktar tilted her head to the side. "I will be leaving the Orchards and traveling to one of the safest, tamest, and most guarded places of Rasheman. Thou will be in more danger in the cottage than I will be among my sisters." _Er, but really thou will be in no danger at all. Damn it, now I've set my mind to worrying..._

"I know," he admitted to her, but he did not look like actually he felt any better. Stumped by how to reassure him, she put an arm about his shoulders. The touch startled him, and he looked hesitantly up at her again.

"Do not be so hard on thyself," she told him gently. "To feel is human, and it will not help to pretend otherwise. All things mend with time."

"Thank you. But..." He hesitated. It seemed he wished to point out how little she really knew about him, but at the same time was reluctant to speak of such topics. He shook his head.

"But...?" she prompted. "Thou doest not think I can imagine the color or tone of what might plague thee?" she wondered.

Homen said nothing.

She squeezed him gently and looked out at the forest. "When I was a young girl, my mother led me out into the wilderness on a picnic. She must have poisoned the food so that I would sleep. When I woke up, she was nowhere to be found. It took me a long time to realize she had left me out there to die because she'd lacked the stomach to smother me."

Gray eyes rose frowning to her own. She knew she had struck home; Homen rarely looked directly at her. "Your affinity for necromancy is natural?" he caught on.

"Some might even call it _un_natural," the witch agreed with a nod. "I must have done something to frighten her, but I do not recall it; I was too young."

"How did you survive?" he wondered.

"Oh, that is a long story," Sheilaktar confessed. "Life provided for me. Often I lived in the mud and reeds as a wild child, befriending pixies and bogles, and causing all form of mischief and misfortune to hapless woodsmen. At one point a Night Hag took me in. She was my mentor in necromancy and the herbal arts, and knew all forms of magic others might call taboo for one reason or another. She was a sweet creature. For a hag."

"What happened?"

Sheilaktar looked at him with hooded eyes. "A magical accident. She ended up burned alive within her warren. I can still hear her screams and the sound of her flesh and eyes popping, and then the crackling of the rafters as the whole building collapsed."

He stared at her. Then he looked away. "That was an _accident_?" he asked quietly.

The witch smirked ironically. "We are all born clean, given shape by our caregivers, and then loosed to make mistakes until the day we die. Some mistakes are lucky, and others are unforgivable. But with each we must grow, change, and move onward; and in this manner we hope to eventually reach maturity." She patted his shoulder and then withdrew her hand. "And anyone who says otherwise is foolish, a liar, and dangerous to our health."

Homen considered this for a moment, watching his feet. She gestured they should continue walking, and he followed. "How did you become a Wychlaran, then?" he asked after a short while.

"That might be a story for another time," she suggested. "Homen, whatever thou feels right now is most likely natural. And healthy. Thou will only be able to let go of it slowly; but as thou doest, thou will become something else entirely. Perhaps something thou liketh better. The key is to never stop growing, and therefore ironically to never stop making mistakes."

"I think there are some mistakes I'd prefer to avoid," he told her quietly.

"Yes, well," she sighed, "as do we all. Still, I am old enough to know we make quite a few of them whether we want to or not. One's failings are no easy thing to be at peace with." She glanced back at him. "Don't presume thou art alone in that."

He nodded, but said nothing. Sheilaktar frowned. A long moment passed in silence. Then he turned his head slightly towards her. "What is a bogle?" he asked. She smiled.


	23. In Dreams

The world was a quagmire of images; and filled with the stench of rotting flesh; as dreams came and went without anchor.

"There they are," hissed a voice as time and place settled within the dreamscape. "Slowly now; the girl has a reputation, but the pup's a wizard the same as any."

* * *

><p>{Leonlai-!} Homen's voice spiked with sudden hysteria; because he already knew she was going to take the shot; because he would have taken it in their situation, or in her shoes. {Don't-! Leon-<em>Senneta<em>-!}

Loud. Pain. Deaf tingling. Numbness.

* * *

><p><em>You bitch... you bitch... You left me to die... <em>

It was easy to be angry, but impossible to find fault; he would have done the exact same thing. When fighting a Red Wizard, why would anyone have presumed it a valid defensive tactic to use another Red Wizard as a human shield? Because they were _siblings_?

Clearly, the blackguard had not been Thayvian.

A darkness settled in like a great and crushing pressure, accompanying his deafness into a deep and liquid pool of non-sensation. In his last flicker of lucidity, he knew he had stopped breathing.

* * *

><p>He was in pain, pain like silver fire.<p>

His head was tilted back, and he was looking up into the face of an old and wrinkled crone. Her hair was a nest of whispy gray, and her bosom was heavy with age. She was Rashemi, or a mutt, and most certainly a slave.

Where was he? The leaking ceiling and poorly constructed walls suggested he was not even in the palace. Then he remembered the attack, and all the things which had happened within its once inalienable walls...

{Why?} he tried to say, though he had no specific question. He sputtered blood. She wiped his mouth and then, when he had stopped coughing for just a moment, she pushed a vial to his lips. Beyond thought or fear, he drank of it.

* * *

><p>He looked up at the bodies of slaves strung up and thrown over the fortress walls, rotting in the open with their bodies partially drawn such that bits and pieces were missing. The crows and buzzards were beginning to swarm around them in the hot autumn sun.<p>

It was not the first time he had looked up to those walls, and seen the bodies of slaves or prisoners of war dangling there; those who could not be made use of by Surthay's masters.

Distantly, he recalled that he had once put several there himself.

* * *

><p>{I am already dead.} He hadn't eaten since he'd awoken.<p>

_Leonlai, they tell me he strung you up by your entrails, like a puppet. That he sewed your mouth shut and put buttons where your eyes were. Is it true, or are they weaving stories in mental preparation for the culling that's sure to pass?_

_How could you be dead while I am still here, even for a short while? You were better, and you proved it._

{There is nowhere to hide. When they find you, you will be dead too.}

The crone ushered him along. {There is one place, and that is where you must go. Somewhere he and his cannot follow.}

* * *

><p>{To say the water will be cold, is to do it a disservice. The northern shore will be as the Styx. But make it there, and no one will follow.}<p>

The water would be a quiet return to darkness. Encompassing and dark and heavy. At least in this manner, there would be no coming back from death.

{Why save me?} he asked of his reflection, and his breath joined the curtains of fog.

{I suckled you as a babe,} the crone told him. {I was your wet nurse.}

He did not know her name. He could not have recognized her face. The only reason he knew she belonged to his family was because their coat of arms had been branded into her skin.

{It's as simple as that?} he breathed whispers into the silence.

{It's as simple as that.}

* * *

><p>{This is as far as any boat can go.}<p>

{No one has ever made this swim.}

The crone shook her head and looked wistfully off into the fog. {No, there are those that do,} she told him. {I did once, when I was very young. Then as now, under the Midnight Hour,} she told him, and did not explain how or why she had returned.

He frowned at he, she who had been little more than aged and curling wallpaper of an underutilized room. She turned her gaze back to him.

{Clear your head of everything. All goals. All fears. All failings. All joy. There is nothing in the world: no shore, no water, no sky; no kraaken beneath nor gods above; just the next breaststroke.}

* * *

><p>Cold.<p>

Dark and Cold.

Timeless, Silent, Blindness.

The stars, or perhaps willo-the-wisps, glowed blue down through the fog, and reflected blue up from the waters.


	24. Lullaby

He sat upright with a sudden hiss into the freezing air of midnight. His skin was slick with sweat, and he was shaking. His skin, muscles, and bones tingled across the side of his chest and down to the extent of his fingers. He grasped at himself, kneading the flesh and willing sensations to fade; as images and thoughts writhed behind the_ pressure_ in his head.

He could see his sister. And, too, he could see his Wychlaran; pale and cold on the ground and surrounded by Lindwurm giblets, her arm slicked with blood.

A guttural noise of dismay and pain heaved forth from his lips. His heart was racing. He stumbled, uncoordinated, out of bed.

The floor was as ice; the open spaces of the cottage were bitter. He clawed his way through the room; past tables, vases, and gourds. He felt heavy bear fur under his fingertips, and fished for the edge of the skin. For a moment, he doubted what he was about to do; he _feared_ it. Then he feared solitude _more_.

Sheilaktar woke up with a start to the sensation of fingers touching her. She jumped slightly, turning slightly to see the boy had crawled onto her bed. "Homen?" she asked groggily. "What art thou-?"

He snaked up against her side and clutched hold of her mid section like a vice. His arms were trembling violently. Suprised, she rolled herself towards him and placed a hand hesitantly on his shoulder. The boy wormed closer, smothering his face into her chest. The Wychlaran's brows furrowed in bewilderment. He was shaking like a leaf; Shaking from head to toe! She'd never seen him in such a fright!

"What is wrong, child?" she whispered, confused.

He didn't look at her. A choked and strangled sob worked its way up his throat, and his fingers kneaded into her robes. He tried to gasp in air with which to steady himself, but a messy whimper tore it out from him again.

Sheilaktar's eyes widened. For a moment she had no idea what to do; and she was quiet as her fosterling's composure dissolved, and as he broke down into pathetic weeping.

"Homen..." The witch scooped both arms quickly about his back, sat herself up, and pulled him tightly into her bosom.

He slumped into her, and cried: He cried openly and loudly, like a frightened toddler clinging to its mother. Tear tracks made his cheeks puffy and pink. His brow flushed with the emotional heat of his exertions. She pulled up her sleeve and dabbed gingerly at his face. Then, when it became clear he would not be recovering soon, she wrapped both arms back around him and rocked him.

The cottage was silent but for his sobs.

So she began humming a lullaby.


	25. Hug

Homen seemed calm when morning came; though Sheilaktar was a little groggy owed to having her sleep interrupted, and might not have been the best judge. But he went about his usual routine as if nothing had happened; and as usual he was a dear about it. He revived the fire, put on some tea, and began crafting some hot breakfast.

As she blinked her eyes sleepily at him, Sheilaktar was not precisely fooled; she had been planning to leave for Mulsantir the day after, and now she suspected her Mulan child would unravel (again) soon after she was gone. _Something is_ _hounding him, and it had been worse these last few days than ever before._ She grunted, heaving her legs out of bed and yawning. Then she rubbed her face and started pulling her indoor shoes on to ward off the chill. _Still upset, I see. Oh, anxious child; silly, anxious child; what plagues thee? How do I get thee to talk to me? Thine mood is becoming communicable, and I am less adjusted to it than thou._

Perhaps she might cancel the trip, and endure her sister's condemnations and the general disapproval of her 'community.' It would not be the first time she had butted heads with other Wychlaran over tradition. On the other hand: to skip such an important ritual, without any warning and without time to train a replacement, would be a grievous injustice onto not only the celebration but also onto the Mother Goddess herself.

Stumped, and short on brainpower before breakfast, Sheilaktar shook her head. Perhaps it was best if they waited to have this conversation until after the solstice. Once she returned, she would have adequate time to speak with and comfort him. But how long was too long to wait? He had been nigh unconsolable just hours ago.

The witch stood and approached the fire place to take a second look at how her fosterling was doing. Homen looked to her and then away again. She raised a brow expectantly, but all he said was: "Almost done," and he was talking about nothing more complex than breakfast.

Sheilaktar placed her hands on her hips, and eyed him incredulously for a moment. She looked about the cottage, rubbed her face, and breathed a grumbling prayer to the mother for patience. Sensing that he'd done something wrong, the boy looked uncertainly towards her. She chuckled.

"Come here, child," she told him, reaching out to him. He blinked and then straightened up as if in alarm as she reached out to him and put her arms about his narrow shoulders. "Well? Come here."

He looked as if he had no idea what to do, but at her prompting he chose to scoot closer to her. She folded all one hundred and twenty pounds of him into a big hug, crossing her arms about his chest and holding his back tight to her bosom. He was a little heavier. One hundred and thirty, perhaps? Bah; still little more than a plucked bird! She leaned her head over his shoulder, and smiled at him. As usual, he did not make eye contact. In fact he looked very nervous.

"Now, listen here sweet creature: I am not going to abandon thee. Or die. I am Wychlaran and thou should have more respect for my capabilities than that." He swallowed and made to apologize, but she lifted a hand to hush him. Then she raised her chin, pressed a kiss firmly to his black hair, and squeezed him. "I do not mind thy company nor thy Mulan blood; and however long thou wishes to remain here in the Orchards, I shall keep thee. In fact, thou has made for a most indisputably pleasant housemate, and I could not ask for a better helper. If thou must linger here years before thy footing feels solid again, then I shall enjoy tutoring thee for all of them."

At that, he did look back at her face, if only for a moment. The speech had clearly startled him, and she had expected that; but there was also an unnerved expression on his face which looked wholly out of place.

"What is the matter? Thou look as if thou swallowed a lemon."

He shifted slightly, and looked at the floorboards. "No one has ever held me before," he told her in a very small voice.

Sheilakter raised a brow in disbelief. After a moment, she turned him about and touched his chin. "Thy parents never hugged thee? Grandparents? Siblings?" He was quiet. She was startled by this revelation. "Neither thy friends nor peers nor anyone at all? Has thou not so much as smooched a pretty damsel?" He shook his head. She considered this moment longer, and what it said of the terrors which had provoked him to climbing into her bed. Then, giving a disbelieving shake of her head, she squeezed him into her again.

Homen stumbled slightly. Then he breathed in deeply and pressed himself into the witch, slipping his arms about her stocky waist. He didn't know what to say to the woman who had carved out a place for him in her country, her home, and her life. After a bit, he told her: "Thank you."

She grunted, and effected to sound a little blustery: "Well. I _am_ a necromancer. I have at times encountered the unfortunate side-effects of hug-deprivation. I can afford to part with one, or perhaps two. Out of gracious and magnanimous generosity, of course."

A weak smile graced his face. He hugged her a little more tightly, and buried his face into her robes and leathers. She caressed over his hair, her nails trailing soothingly along his scalp.


	26. Packing Butter

They spent most of the day packing for her trip.

And indeed, it turned out they had quite a lot to pack. Sheilaktar filled up no fewer than three large bags and a small traveling trunk with ingredients. She packed spell components, potions, bottled essences, dried herbs, jars of perserved spices, and all manner of spell components. The Dead LIndwurm, in particular, had given her quite a large number of extra parcels to bring along!

Watching her leave with vessel after vessel, wheel after wheel, package after package, Homen wondered how she intended to transport so much. He came out to see that she had placed the bags upon their chopping wood and erected a small awning to protect them. No doubt this was her attempt to keep items she was taking segregated from items she planned not to, so that nothing got left behind.

Homen had expected her to bring some things for barter. And indeed, when he'd gone out with her to watch her harvest or preserve what remained of the Lindwurm giblets, he had also expected a number of these items to be traded. What he had not expected was everything else she chose to bring: including a great number of wood, crystal, and leather-crafted items, and an enormous assortment of jams and sauces.

"How do you plan to carry so much?" he wondered aloud.

Sheilaktar smirked and went inside. She came out moments later with what appeared to be a saddle, and she settled it down atop the bags. "In style," she told him slyly, and he realized that was all he would get from her until the morrow. Perhaps she intended to work magic?

The idea of magic did not leave him anxious. It left him feeling quiet; happy, but sad at the same time; resigned.

"Be a dear and pack me some butter," she told him. Butter, Homen now well knew, was one of Sheilaktar's favorite foods. It ended up in each and every one of their meals in some form or another, and there were times he wondered if she might die of starvation were the gods to curse her with an allergy towards dairy. He nodded and went off to comply with her whim.


	27. Homen Odesseiron

It was late, and Sheilaktar was already dosing when Homen settled down his broom, came up beside her, and sat upon the edge of her bed. The witch stirred slightly as she registered his presence. She opened her eyes and looked curiously up at him. He was looking away from her.

"I do not mean to disturb you when you have such a long trip tomorrow," he told her.

She waved a few fingers dismissively.

He looked down at his hands and ventured: "I was wondering if I might tell you something?"

"I am listening," she agreed sleepily.

He hesitated. "I am not sure I will be able to tell it all if you ask question in between..."

"I will not interrupt," she promised.

He took in a slow breath, rubbing his hands together and looking out at the cottage. For a moment he was quiet, and Sheilaktar almost dosed again. She shifted slightly to keep herself awake. When he began speaking, his voice was soft and did not waver. "I swam the final length of Mulsantir. An old Rashemi slave took me out into the water. It was the only way I might live. I told her it was impossible, and she answered me not to think about anything but the next breaststroke."

_Oh. Oh, now? _Sheilaktar realized, her eyes widening as she watched the boy. He was not shaking. She wanted to dissuade him from what surely was about to be a very emotional outpouring; but then she had just promised not to interrupt. As she tried to decide how to react, he kept speaking.

"My family was wiped out. It was a betrayal from within, instigated by one of my uncles who perceived that my immediate family and their supporters could no longer stop him.

"In secret, he had ascended to lich hood, and that gave him the power and security he needed to assault us. And he was ruthless. A Mohrg, I think, killed and devoured my mother. My father fell to the ghouls. My youngest brother, who was only three, was swallowed whole by a ghoul horse. And my other siblings no doubt perished similarly.

"I fled with my elder sister, who had been my turtor, and who was forced to strike me down to hit a target behind me. Then she left me there. I died in that place. I stopped breathing, and I think my heart stopped.

"But that Rashemi crone dragged me out from under the battle and resuscitated me, for no reason other than she had been my wetnurse. I didn't even know her. The only reason I could tell she had been our slave was because she bore our brand; Our coat of arms; a boar's head."

_A boar? The only standard I know of which bears a boar is the-_

He wet his lips and kept speaking, and now he sounded nervous and his voice was quick: "My full name is Homen Nadezhda Odesseiron, of the ruling family of Surthay. I was my parent's second eldest child and the oldest boy. Soon, I might have been named heir to the tharchion.

"The day he attacked, my family had been throwing a celebration in my honor. I had gone through the final and most arduous of tests; I had survived my apprenticeship and the academy. It was a time for feasting and rest; as all of Thay's opportunities were open to me.

Homen took a deep breath and then managed the worst part: "It was the day we, as a family, celebrated that I had finally become a Red Wizard of Thay."

A silence- sharp and poignant- stretched across the cottage then. It was almost painful the ears. The courage which had filled him up to speak to her had all but evaporated. When she said nothing, he could not bring himself to look back at her. He had proof she was awake; he had felt her prop herself up on her elbows. He didn't want to see what expression she was wearing.

"If you feel it necessary to deal with me differently than you have, I will understand," he told her, slaving to keep his voice steady. "My life has always been in your hands and I-I wanted to tell you how grateful I am. And... and to explain... to explain why I've been so- ...I just wanted to implore you to come back safely. That is all."

He stood up and crossed the cottage unsteadily and swiftly. The floor seemed longer than usual, and the air more bitter. With the state of perpetual war in existence between Red Wizards and Wychlarans, he almost wondered if he might be blown apart on the spot. But nothing happened. He crawled into his bed, and pulled the blankets over his head; and the silence remained deafening.


	28. Get Up

"Get up."

Sheilaktar's voice was rough and commanding as she tossed the blankets off from over him. By the dim lighting, it was barely dawn. Homen shifted in confusion, as he was not used to being woken in this manner.

"_Up_."

He recalled the evening before with a jolt, and then quickly did as she bade him. No sooner had he stood than she grasped his arm and propelled him firmly to the cottage doorstep. Homen stumbled to keep up with her and then blinked at what he beheld. Nudisne was poised outside the cottage, but she had been grown to many times her usual size. Her torso was larger than a heavy war charger's, and in fact may have rivaled a small elephant's. Her enormous wings propped her off the ground at present, but fully spread they would have been unbelievably large. Sheilaktar had fitted her with a saddle, and loaded all of her belongings onto her back.

Sheilaktar thrust his cloak, and boots into his hands. "Dress thyself," she told him.

Homen tensed, grimacing quickly at his feet. Did _this_ mean what he supposed? That he was to be turned out? Feverishly he he hoped not, though he had half expected to be. Still, the more the days had worn on, the more concealing such information from her had started to feel both _wrong _and blatantly disrespectful. "Senne-"

Sheilaktar was not in a listening mood: "Be silent and obey me! I am not leaving a stray Red Wizard in my _home_ over Midwinter!" she shouted at him.

He cringed slightly at the volume and the severity of her tone. Perhaps he shouldn't have told her about.. about..._ But- but I- I- ...Please..._ Perhaps this was precisely what he deserved. The young man hugged his things tightly for a moment. Then he swallowed, nodded and leaned over, setting his boots down and stuffing his feet into them. She waited impatiently. He clumsily tied up the laces.

"Swiftly, boy," she hissed. "Swiflty!"

He had scarcely felt so wretched in his life. He had come close once, on the day she'd returned to the cottage and chastised him like a raging dragon for cleaning the place. After all he had been through, it was one woman's temper that left him shaking in his boots. His stomach was clenching to the point of ulcers, and his heart had sunk to his belly.

He had nothing. He was nothing. He had no magic, no spellbook, no name, no titles, no allies, nor country, no red robes, and no ambitions; he was a helpless child, and he needed her. He needed her because she was older, she was wiser, she was stable, and for whatever reason she had elected both to save his life and take care of him.

Homen stood and pulled the coat on. Before he could tie it, she grabbed his shoulder again and pushed him out into the rising daylight. Again he stumbled, hugging his arms close to his chest.


	29. The Girl

Sheilaktar _was_ angry, and she became more so when she turned the Thayvian boy about and he- as usual- did not make eye contact with her. He was holding his hands pathetically close to him and his posture was crumpled. "Look at me," she told him.

His gaze lifted slightly.

With a snarl of irritation, she reached forward and grabbed his jaw and throat, forcing his head up and pulling him forward a step. His eyes darted to hers. "When I tell thee to look at me, I expect thou _to obey_," she told him. "I expect thou to obey each and every last remaining command I give thee, without question, and immediately. Is that clear?"

He was biting the interior of his lower lip, though not very obviously. His trembles, and the despair written in his expression, took her fury down a notch. Still, she was gratified when he nodded.

"Foolish boy," she muttered, releasing him. "Stupid, foolish boy. Of all the half-baked ideas; of all the senses of timing!" She stepped around him, eying him up and down and reaching out to touch him and make sure she knew exactly what she was working with. "A day of warning might have been kind; or dare I say even holding off and saying nothing at all! But of all the choices available; the child springs the burden of decision on _me_!"

"S-senneta do not cast me out," he begged her in a rush, his nails digging into his palms. "I will never-"

"Cast the fool child out?!" she hissed incredulously. "Yes, Nudisne, perhaps we _should_, and rid ourselves of his extraordinarily poor reasoning skills! Bah!"

He looked at her, confused but abruptly hopeful.

"We will speak of 'casting out' when we have returned, _boy_, and not today; but neither am I leaving thee here unsupervised," she told him bitterly. "Thou will be coming with me to the Midwinter festival, and that is non-negotiable."

His eyes widened in astonishment. "But the Wychlaran will-"

"Yes, yes, yes; and were I to take thee there in your current state it would be thy death sentence, now wouldn't it? But there is more than one loophole to every set of rules; social and otherwise! Now stand _still_," she growled at him. "A disguise will have to suffice. Perhaps one with a bit of truth to it will hold up better to scrutiny than a bigger lie. Yes, we cannot change the accent. Fine! It would not be the first time I have drawn criticism for _poor life choices_." Sheilaktar snorted. "Very well." She came to stand before him. "Do not _move_."

Homen was gaping at her. To her begrudging amusement, the only question which leaked from his mouth was: "But you are a necromancer. Can you cast illusions?"

Sheilaktar paused and raised a brow at him. "Who ever said anything about illusions?" she asked gruffly, and then quickly began to pin Draconic words in time with somatic gestures. Transmutation energy rushed between her fingers, twisting into the proper form of spell. When it was ready, she blew upon her hands, and the spell flew out to envelope him temporarily in a yellow glow.

When the spell had faded, she took a step back to examine her handiwork. Homen, who still looked quite wretched in the aftermath of his morning wake-up call, looked very similar once the transmutation was complete. His facial hair was gone, of course, and some of his bodily measurements had changed. He was somewhat shorter, and his jawline was softer. He glanced at himself, and realized he was still Mulan. Then an incredulous and almost violated expression twisted over his face. He grasped at his chest and then looked up at her in disbelief.

Sheilaktar was scowling. She reached forward in disbelief and groped at him. "Thou..." she sputtered. "Thou are the... the... Of _course_. Of course thou have made for the _least feminine_ looking woman I have ever seen. No butt of any kind! No breasts, no curves or fat...! I had expected thee to grow a _few_ pounds here or there in aesthetically pleasing locations- but no, thou art as scrawny as thou began!"

Dismay was written openly on the poor boy's face.

"How the devil do Mulan people tell their women from their men?!" Sheilaktar demanded of him. "The boys have no shoulders and the girls have no hips! Thou art all as flimsy as emaciated, yellow, string bean plants! How do your kind bear children or breastfeed!? No! No, I already know the answer: apparently you require Rashemi wet nurses and their breasts to feed your babies for you!"

Homen continued to stare at her, reeling back from her onslaught and still digesting the fact that she had turned him into a woman.

Sheilaktar glowered at him a moment. Then she sat back on the balls of her feet, and scratched her chin. "Well," she mused darkly, "I suppose at least this means I shall not have to let out the hems of thy clothing to complete the disguise. Though perhaps we might _wish_ to add in a little padding, if just to make it clearer that thou art female? Hmm."

"_Why_?" he croaked in a delightfully high voice. Sheilaktar jumped, startled. Then a wide grin broke her face, and she threw back her head and _laughed_. She laughed and laughed and laughed, because she had been in a state of angry concern from the moment she'd awakened, and _something_ about the Thayvian brat having a songbird's voice was disarming.

When she looked back down at him, he'd shrunk a few inches more. She grinned like a cat. "Why!? Why does the sun rise? Do not question my methods and thou may yet get through this alive!" She advanced on him. "Thou deceived me. _Concealed _not only thy arcane talent, but also thy origins and affiliations!"

"I am not-" he squeaked in that delightfully girlish voice.

"No! Thou art _not_," she told him. "A male Red Wizard on my shores, I would kill will impunity. But thee? A meek little unproven Mulan common girl of humble origins and no breeding or training worth mentioning? Thou I can take _pity on_. At least while it entertains me to do so, and before I come to my senses!"

He straightened a little. "I am posing as Wychlaran?" he wondered, confused.

"No! And thou art to be quiet, and demure at all times! Thou art posing as _unproven_," she told him sternly. "That is our word for women who have not taken our oaths but are possessed of some Gift and live under our authority. Be obedient and submissive to the extreme; follow every order a Wychlaran gives to you, and mine _most of all_. Question _nothing_. Is that _clear_, little _girl_?"

He swallowed hard and nodded, lowering his head.

"Good," she muttered. "Now get on the bat. And hold tight; I am not catching thy troublesome arse if thou falls, small as it might be."


	30. Half Hag

"Now be quiet as I have instructed thee," Sheilaktar whispered as she helped him down off Nudisne's back.

Homen stumbled, feeling a little like jelly after soaring countless miles above the trees, and had to steady steady himself on his Hathran's arm for a bit. Spread out before them on Rasheman's snow was a gathering of incredible proportions. There were thousands of people present, if not more; and countless tents, lodges, bonfires, and other structures. He sucked in a nervous breath and wondered quietly: "What do I do?"

"Improvise," Sheilaktar grumbled. "Act. Thou art good at that."

He winced and looked at his feet. It was peculiar to be looking down at a woman's body, primarily because it scarcely looked any different; his coat was thick enough that no change could be seen about his chest. "Yes, Sheilaktar," he murmured.

The witch grunted and set to fussing about his appearance for a moment. She straightened his hood and lamented his slender frame again, before surrendering to the inevitability that he would stand out. "Keep your hood low, unload Nudisne, and try not to attract too much attention to yourself. I will return shortly." She reached up to scratch the bat's head for a moment, and then turned and strode purposefully towards the thicker crowds.

Homen took a deep breath. Nudisne nudged him reassuringly. He patted her and set to removing the many bags and bundles from her saddle.

Ethnic music wound slowly up across the gathering grounds; a rolling tide of reeds and strings. Shepherds ushered along prized members of their flocks; traders rolled by in an endless scattering of wagons. Past him moved pots and bags containing untold varieties of goods, and carts carrying more chests than one imagined they could carry, with garlic or other hanging goods dangling down their sides.

The most common colors he saw were tan, cream, and brown; but an endless, cluttered rainbow of clothing washed slowly past. Most of the inhabitants were dressed in thick skins, or else tightly woven cottons or heavy animal hair. He heard a surprising number of accents: including some which used pronouns the way he had been taught them, and others which used them in Sheilakter's style of 'thous' and 'thys.'

But if the laymen seemed varied or filled with character, than they were nothing next to the witches. What a widely stylized and eclectic group the latter were!

Their choices in clothing varied like the wind: heavy winter parkas trimmed with fur and bleached white; elaborate dresses with countless pagan knot designs trimmed in gold and proofed magically against the weather; thick fur and leather skins; colored wool emblazoned tastefully with solitary symbols! Their skin ran a gamut of cream to cocoa; their hair was black, brown, red, or (rarely) blond; and their eyes were every conceivable color.

Yet they shared immediately recognizable ethnic traits: their hair was wild and thick and held color well into old age; their bones were sturdy and broad of diameter; and in general they were what any Mulan would have haughtily described as 'plump.' Even those Rashemi women who were incredibly slender had thighs and hips twice the size of a Thayvian counterpart's.

Still, he marveled at their heterogeneity as they moved past. Red Wizards wore, well, red; and few did not subscribe to the same notion of High Thayvian Fashion. By contrast, the witches were a chaotic feast to the eyes. It suited the feeling in the air.

Some traveled together; others alone; some walked with armed and tattooed soldiers of such size and physical strength that they could only possibly be beserkers. They called out to one another and hurried forward to meet or embrace old friends. The atmosphere was one of laughter; of joy; of excitement. The music was gathering louder across the hills, and many people were breaking out ribbons or setting out candles to line pathways across the fields of snow. In the distance, a witch was transmuting ice into an elaborate statue of a swan, while children lobbed snowballs at one another.

Homen took in a deep breath, steadying himself briefly against Nudisne's saddle. Wychlaran were _not_ like Red Wizards. Everything about Mulsantir would be alien to him. He heard curious giggles coming from nearby, and then sounds of confusion. Hair pricked up on the back of his neck, and he realized he'd perhaps shown too much of himself in his eagerness to look at everything.

"Hey!" a voice called, and he stiffened. "You there! Who are you?" The entreaty was only curious, but he had no idea how to respond. He glanced past the edge of his hood, and saw that a group of three younger women were watching him with interested expressions. None of them could have been much older than he; but the first thing he noticed was each doubtless weighed a good fifty to sixty pounds more than him. He _did_ stand out; Of _course_ he did.

"She is not Rashemi!" one observed, while another wondered something aloud about the Orchards, and the others noted the bat belonged to one of the Circle. He heard Sheilaktar's name.

After floundering in vain for a response, he quickly turned back to Nudisne and began unstrapping another bag from her side. Perhaps if he just ignored them?

"Who is she?" he heard, overlapped by a laugh and: "She's shy!" Someone wondered if he was half-elfin; and another suggested he was perhaps too tall. Someone wondered whether he was a girl at all with a chest so flat. He stiffened when he realized one of them had come closer: "Foreign girl, who are you?" the query repeated, now coming from directly behind him. "Should you really be-?"

Nudisne, yipped in displeasure at the newcomer's proximity; and Homen learned the great bat sounded very much akin to a great fox. Nudisne gave a shake of her body and twisted aggressively to bare her teeth at the Rashemi woman, her fur bristling up to make herself seem bigger than she already was. Homen lifted his hands in surprise and then reached out to steady the animal's massive shoulders. He pat her neck vigorously and attempted to hush her.

Nudisne huffed. The Wychlaran (or were they unproven?) murmured apologies or else chuckled. Homen took in a deep breath and whispered an appreciative 'thank you.' The bat grumbled and then rubbed her neck and jaw affectionately against him.

"The creature knows her," one of the girls protested. "Let her be, she is shy!" Another laughed. "She is foreign and we've not seen her before; can we not be curious? We might fast make friends!" The reply: "She is shaking in her boots! Let her teacher introduce her as she wills. Come now, leave her alone. Leave her alone, she doesn't have to answer you..."

_Yes, please go away, _he begged. _Please go away before one of your mentors notices me... _

His prayers were answered. The girls apparently lost interest in him and began drifting along to enjoy their holiday. "I do not think I've ever heard of the Orchards Witch taking in an ethran," he heard one say as they departed.

"The Sheilaktar is _ruthless_. I've heard she's driven away or killed anyone who has asked to learn from her."

"They say she's half hag, you know? Some people say she eats woodsmen who stray into her domain."

"That's nonsense!"

"How do you know? Have you ever seen her up close? She's _terrifying_! If she looks at you, her stare just chills you to the bone!"

Holding tight to Nudisne's neck, Homen couldn't help himself: He broke out laughing. Quietly, though; he didn't want to attract any _more_ attention.


	31. Mulan

Homen was sitting upon their luggage and feeding Nusidsne slices of canned peach when Sheilaktar returned with two women in tow. She gave no warning; merely cast a spell to return the dire bat to her proper size. Homen jumped to his feet and turned about, still holding the jar of peaches.

"This is the girl?" asked a woman in cream and violent. Her cloak was capped by a brilliant white fox pelt whose teeth and tail clasped at her shoulder. Sheilaktar crossed her arms across her bosom and nodded wordlessly.

"By the godesses-!" sputtered a witch with falcon feathers in her raven hair and a dark green scarf about her face. She bypassed Sheilaktar, and he stepped backwards reflexively as she approached. It did no good; she seized hold of his arm with fingers sheathed in a metal gauntlet of falcon-like talons, and she roughly threw back his hood.

With a disgusted snarl, falcon-feathers hauled him forward to throw him towards the other two: "This girl be Mulan!"

An awkward silence erupted; a hundred tongues stilled; the eyes which watched him were suddenly legion. Homen stumbled, and quickly fixed his gaze to his own shoes. With a slight twang of hysteria, he thought how glad he was he hadn't accidentally spilled any of the peaches...

Shielaktar's retort came sharp an immediate over his head: "This girl is my student; do not lay hands on her a second time."

Falcon-feathers was quick to shout: "What be she doing on Rashemi soil!? Be thou mad?"

"As to the first: Brooming my floors. As to the second? Keep talking, I'll get there."

Her response was clearly off-putting, because it took the other woman a moment to respond. "How can thou be flippant here, sister?" falcon-haired stalked about him and seized hold of his hair. He stumbled again with a throttled squeak, and then cut off when he felt her clawed fingers pressing into his throat. "What game doeth thou play where this be acceptable joke?!"

Sheilaktar stepped forward slowly, such that Homen could see the edge of her boots. The furs and raven feathers of her elaborate cloak made no sound while she moved, and her feet were soft upon the ground. He winced against the grasp on his hair, and tried to offer no resistance.

"Release her, Keilaeyn," the Orchards witch intoned in a low voice. "Thou more than any should know it is an unforgivable insult to do harm onto a Sister's chosen companion. Berserker, Ethran, Unproven, or otherwise."

A moment passed in hostile silence. Then falcon-feathers, Keilaeyn, released his hair; and Sheilaktar pulled him out from between them. He glanced up briefly and huddled near to her.

But the fox fur woman was on Sheilaktar's other side, and she too seized hold of him, grabbing his chin and tugging him to look up at her. He obeyed. It took no skill in acting to be quaking in his boots; but the face which peered down at him looked thoughtful.

"You must bring her before the Circle, sister," fox-fur decided. "You must show the others what you have done and account for it."

Sheilaktar chuckled, still not bothering to uncross her arms. "But of course."


	32. Horror

The three Hathran- Homen supposed that's what they all were- escorted him quickly and silently through the center of the gathering. Though they spoke to no one on their way, the rumor of his ethnicity must have flown across the gathering like a wind. The heavily crowded roads parted for them easier than seemed normal, and yet hundreds of faces seemed to press in to witness them from all sides. The younger generations seemed curious; the elder, spiteful. They murmured to one another without bothering to cover their words, and he heard all manner of critique, criticism, insult, and bloodthirst drip from their lips.

A heat rose up in his face, and he raised a hand, flustered, to retrieve his hood. He had never been made to feel self-conscious of his own appearance before: By Mulan standards, he was supposedly handsome. But he was self-conscious now, and aware of every glaring difference between his own body and theirs. He pulled the hood low over his face and tucked his chin into his collar.

It was odd to be on the receiving end of scorn. It was odd to feel flustered by comments on his _bosom_.

That was when _someone_ threw rotten produce at him. He flinched under the hit, and looked in surprise at his shoulder, where a mouldy tomato had splattered all over the coat Sheilaktar had made on his behalf.

_You dare attack a-!? Filthy, FILTHY, unwashed, chattel of-!  
><em>

"Thayvians should be _Red_!" someone shouted, startling a murmur of vicious laughter through though the crowd.

Homen's face drained of color. He floundered a moment, dazed, and lost somewhere between two worlds. _I am going to die here, and I am going to deserve it... _His fingertips touched uncertainly at the off-color vegetable stains.

Behind him, Sheilaktar stepped up between him and the crowd. His witch didn't look at them, as if unaffected by their assault. With her arms still crossed, she but announced a single word: "_Avodalend."_

A shockwave of screams burst out from where they were standing, and then men and women were flying away in a horrified and magically-induced panic. Stalls were toppled as bodies tripped over one another in their haste to leave the scene. Within seconds, there was no one within a dozen feet of them. Homen stiffened in surprise.

"Sheilaktar!" both other Hathran exclaimed in simultaneous disapproval.

"Someone could have been hurt!" fox-fur chastised.

Homen looked up at his Hathran, who said nothing to her fellows and merely shrugged off their rebuke like it was nothing.

"I-I'm sorry, Senneta," he whispered to her, and not precisely for thrown tomatoes. He clutched at the stains hesitantly, feeling wretched. "I-I... I'll clean it as soon as I can..."

"Use only Rashemi, child," she told him pointedly. "And do not speak unless spoken to."

He bobbed his head and looked back to the ground.


	33. Yhelbruna

Mulsantir herself was a walled trade city upon the lake. She was scarcely the largest city in Rasheman, but in many ways she was formidable as she had stood ground against Thayvian seiges from the south and weathered through stronger than ever. She served as the terminus of Golden Road from Kara'Tur, and as the entry point into Faerun and the Realms, and she was a strategical point of no small significance.

Even in ancient times, however, she had been a locus of spiritual energy; and so it was that this Feast of the Mother had come to take place at her side.

There were located great stone circles made of monolithic blue diorite that would stand a thousand years without the aid of man, and capped off into a circle of triliths by lintels of some darker rock. Each stood many times larger than the greatest of men, and could only have been moved by magic- or perhaps by dragon. Surrounding the grounds were barrows devoted to the most active protective spirits of Southern Rasheman; defenders whom the city called on in times of great need.

It was to these landmarks that the Hathran ushered Homen, and as several witches carried on with conducting decoration efforts, others turned to receive Sheilaktar's arrival with suspicion and curiosity. Most were astonishing in their varied appearances, and wore the beautifully painted masks of the Hathran. Glancing furtively up at them, Homen was struck by how plane Sheilaktar's mask seemed by comparison. These women wore the faces of great dragons, animals, or spirits; and they were liberal in their use of color and stylization. Sheilaktar's was almost entirely white.

Only a few of the women went bare-faced, and these he supposed were to be feared most of all because _they_ feared nothing. Among these was a woman who stood near the southern edge of the circle, her long white hair hanging in thick plaits down to her ankles, and her face wrinkled extensively with age. She carried the grace of a queen and the kindliness of a grandmother in an expression that persisted like a threatening smile about the edges of her mouth. Her dress was a dull and elegant purple.

_Yelbruna, _Homen knew the name without being taught. _The Bitch Queen of Rashemi._

The Hathran as a group waited quietly for a moment as Homen and his escorts entered the circle. Then one of them, a younger woman in a red robin mask standing beside Yelbruna, came forward to greet their approach. "Sheilaktar, you have arrived," she prefaced, and nodded politely in greeting to all three other hathran. Then her eyes turned curiously down to Homen. "And you have brought a foreigner, we hear."

"The waif is mine," his Senneta agreed.

"Come forward then, girl," the robin girl said to Homen, and she gestured that he should follow, "and we shall assess you."

Sheilaktar raised her brows. "Assess her all thy wish; she is still my companion."

At this, the robin-masked woman hesitated. Homen, who was trying and failing not to look up at all the witches about himself, noted that Yelbruna tilted her head to the side. He licked his hips. Then the robin girl nodded, and placed a hand upon Homen's shoulder so gently he almost jumped. He looked up at her in surprise and saw her eyes were smiling behind her mask.

"My name is Nythra," the robin girl told him.

Numb, all he could think to do was nod.

Nythra, surprisingly, chuckled. "Come," she told him in a soft whisper, and she ushered him forward. "And do not be so afraid. They are just a bunch of old and cranky women." His eyes widened in disbelief at her. Nythra winked. He swallowed, but had no choice but comply with her gentle pushing.


	34. Peaches

Yhelbruna, Eldest of Rasheman's witches, was _tall_. She was taller than Homen, and that made her considerably taller than most of her fellow witches. She did not hunch or sag in any way; she stood straight as an arrow. Her hair had a natural curl to it that shown in a few loose bangs which spiraled down amongst her braids. Her cheeks were rosy with life even in Mulsantir's bitter winter chill. And though her cloak and dress might have seemed plain in the abstract, upon her they were a poem of elegance.

Sheilaktar, Keilaeyn, and white fox came up a short distance behind Homen to complete the circle, but Nythra stayed near him and have his shoulder a gentle squeeze.

"My sisters, Sheilaktar claims this girl as her chosen companion, and has brought her here that you might meet her," Nythra explained.

Immediately there was a commotion among the Hathran, who looked to one another and to Sheilaktar incredulously, and who had a great deal to say all at once and in very unhappy voices. Homen was only vaguely aware of them...

At the head of them all, Yhelbruna was utterly silent. And she was _watching_ him, her head tilting from one side to the other upon her long neck, and her braids sliding upon her cheek. His lips parted slightly as he drew in a breath. When she spoke, the softness of her voice rendered her sisters suddenly quiet:

"Tell us child, and be honest for we are wise in the way of truth and falsehood... What is your name?"

Homen swallowed, his gaze briefly turning to the panel of loveless masks and narrowed eyes on all sides of him. Then he looked back up at Yhelbruna and told her: "Nadezdha."

Yhelbruna nodded. "How old are you, Nadezdha?"

"Seven and ten," Homen or, rather, _Nadezdha_ answered her quietly.

"And are you from Thay, child?"

The Mulan boy or, rather, _girl_ nodded meekly.

Another of the witches- they felt so dissimilar from one another and yet they were all just masks- gave an angry and prohibitory wave of her hand. "At seventeen, she is already a full-blooded Thayvian. Do you not know? In her own country, she would already be considered an adult; it is insanity to bring her here as if she were merely unproven and not an outsider!"

"Come now, look at her face and eyes," another argued, "look at her wrists, or at her neck; she is but a child and still gawkish in her youth!"

Still another witch scoffed: "You have lived in Urling and Mulptan too long and you are soft to foreign faces. Down in the south we know better; working with the fishermen we know better; there are even _Red Wizards_ younger than she!"

"Art thou insinuating this quivering feather of a girl is a Red Wizard?" another laughed. "She does not belong in Rasheman, but no Thayvian does; she is hardly _dangerous_!"

"She should be _disposed of_, along with everything she has seen and heard-"

"Don't be zealous; is she behaving like any Thayvian you have ever heard of? Look at her; she is meek as a lamb, and it would be absurd to do harm onto one who is harmless."

"Which is precisely why I deem this naught but a clever act."

Yhelbruna looked to her many sisters thoughtfully, noting all of their words. At last her gaze drifted past Homen's shoulder, and a smile graced her countenance. A few of the other witches were drawn by her gaze. "You've donned your mask, our evening dragon," the Eldest witch noted. Homen looked hesitantly behind him, and saw that Sheilaktar had done just that. The bone white faceplate stood out in stark contrast against her sister's colorful adornments, and this was the first time Homen realized it resembled a death mask or skull.

"The better to hide her indolent contempt, no doubt," one of the other witches noted. "Sheilaktar, we have never known you to _voluntarily tolerate_ students or any other 'nuisances' underfoot. You were quite demeaning with your terminology. Now for years we have asked you to train another, and you do _this_? Are you mad? Is this just to spite us? What is so special about this girl that you should welcome here into your home?"

Sheilaktar inclined her head to the side, and looked for all the world like some sociopathic, otherworldly monster. "My goats like her," the necromancer replied in a level voice.

That seemed to frustrate the other women. "Thine-! Sheilaktar, she is Mulan! Doeth thou not realize that this is not... not remotely _acceptable_!?"

"It is not up to thee to accept it," the necromancer responded with the arrogance of one who entertained no arguments. "She is my companion whether any of thou recognize her as such. And the woman who first lays hands upon her with ill intent, I will render amputated from the offending limb here and now."

'Nadezdha' took in a sharp breath in understanding. Sheilaktar did not wear her mask to protect her identity, he (or rather, _she_) suddenly realized; Sheilaktar donned it only when she expected a _fight_.

"You think..." a hathran in a blue-ox mask began in a low voice, "that you can come here and bully _us_...? That we are beholden to _your_ whims? You have lived too long alone, treating with hags, '_sister_.'" She spat the final word like a curse.

"Thou dare insinuate my allegiances are impure? Do not_ goad_ me," the necromancer uttered, her voice dropping to a low and gravely vibrato. Nadezdha's eyes widened as 'she' realized where all of this might head. "We have done this dance before, and thou knoweth better than to pick fights with _me!_"

"You have brought an enemy into our midst on our most holy day, you selfish, disrespectful _eel_ of a girl-!" the ox advanced a step on Nadezdha.

"Take another step towards her and more than eels will be eating the leg thou takes it with."

Immediately, quite a number of feet stepped forward both to aggress and defend, and their barrage of traded insults and spellwork was pierced only by Nadezdha's dismayed and disapproving cry of: "Senneta!"

Nadezdha hadn't realized how loud she must have been until an entire gaggle of witches was peering curiously back at her. At the rear of the group, Sheilaktar was already holding a long bone javelin at ready, and her other hand was halfway through a spell. She'd paused, however, and was staring at her 'ward.'

A moment passed in bewildered quiet.

Then the necromancer slowly eased out of her crouch. Her javelin slipped down to her side, and after an awkward moment she nodded. The weapon shrunk back into the size and shape of a sewing needle, and she slipped it back into her hair.

A laugh burst out from the front of the circle. Nadezdha twisted back about, and looked surprised up at Yhelbruna. The Eldest was_ laughing!_ She'd turned her face aside and had a hand cupped under her elbow and the other splayed over her brow. She kept laughing for a moment, shaking her head. The other Hathran were just as startled by her laughter. They loosened slowly back out into a proper circle, shooting dirty looks at one another and muttering under their breaths. Yhelbruna turned a thoughtful smile down on Nadezdha.

Then Yhelbruna stepped slowly up to him and leaned forward slightly. There was a viciously intelligent and yet soft-edged look in her eyes up close that left the Mulan girl's mouth dry. _Does she know?_ the Thayvian wondered. _Does she already know everything? Is she about to reveal it?_

"Tell me child," the woman murmured. "What is in that jar you are carrying so tight against you?"

Hom-Nadezdha had almost forgotten about the jar. She looked down at it now, and then swallowed hesitantly up at the Eldest Witch again. "P-peaches," she supplied quietly.

"I see. And did you jar them yourself?" Yhelbruna inquired.

Nadezdha nodded.

"May I try one?"

The Thayvian's eyes widened still larger in disbelief. She hesitated for a moment. Then, at Yhelbruna's prompting expression, the girl looked back down to her jar. She opened it once more, and extracted a slice of preserved peach. After inspecting it for Nudisne-related blemishes, she slowly offered it up to the elder.

The Eldest Witch took it with a soft 'thank you' and stood upright to sample the slice. The other Wychlaran winced as if they wanted to council her to caution; but they said nothing as she took a bite, and licked her lips. There was laughter in her voice when she spoke: "Mm. Tell me child, do you wish to go back to Thay?"

The girl quickly shook her head. "No._ Please_."

"And why is that?"

Nadezdha hesitated. "The... the truth?"

"Yes. Only ever the truth," Yhelbruna agreed.

The girl swallowed. "The only people in my life who have ever been kind to me were Rashemi," she mumbled at last.

The word 'Kind?' was repeated around him as if it baffled them. Yhelbruna's brows raised curiously. "I see. And what do you think of Sheilaktar, Nadezdha? The truth. The full truth."

Nadezdha opened her mouth but hesitated, because what she'd wanted to say didn't seem sincere enough. Another phrasing occurred to her, but fear stole her voice. At her side, the robin-masked girl Nythra gently squeezed her shoulder.

Nadezhda blushed and looked down at her jar. Then she took in a deep breath. "My hathran is... is _terrifying_. But..." She looked hesitantly around at the coven, at these powerful women so unlike herself. "B-but she has been a better mother than my mother, a better sister than my sister, a better teacher than my teachers, and a better friend than my friends." Her next words spilled out in a rush, and she was ashamed and confused to feel hot tears at her eyes once again: "T-The only place I know to go home to is in the Orchards!

"Please don't send me away! _K-kill_ me before you send me away!"


	35. Skillset

Something about Nadezdha's raw voice must have seemed genuine to the Hathran because they set to conversing in much softer tones; but the Mulan 'girl' was too overwhelmed to figure out exactly why. 'Her' vision blurred and for a moment she could only hear her own pulse and the screams of ghouls twisting through nightmarish memories as stress and uncertainty bloomed up to consume her. When she could focus again, it was because Yhelbruna was speaking to settle the group down, and her voice was soothing.

She tried to focus on the Eldest. At her side, Nythra still clasped her shoulder as if in a gesture of reassurance.

"Sheilaktar," one of the Hathran asked. "Tell us your intention with this girl: Is her purpose companionship, or is she a student?"

The necromancer looked away from her 'ward' and towards the question. "She is Unproven," the necromancer responded. "She shows affinity for the arcane."

The Hathran nodded and looked to Nadezdha. "Girl: Have you received any training in magic?"

The Thayvian breathed in shakily, realizing acutely the dangerous she was in if she answered suspiciously. "N-none that would help me any," she told them weakly.

"But you _have_?" the Hathran pressed.

Another Hathran interrupted: "Any Mulan child with arcane taint would have been scooped up by the Acadamy had she been found; they are not given a _choice_, girl."

But the retort was: "Let her answer!"

Nadezdha wet her lips. "I can read Draconic," she volunteered nervously, hopefully. "A-and Rashemi, and most Thorass dialects-"

"Does thou have a spellbook?" came the next question.

"No!" the girl exclaimed. "I-I have n-nothing! These are my only clothes; and Sen- Sheilaktar made them for me." And now they were stained. She touched her shoulder where mouldy tomato still lingered.

"She is still capable of the arcane! Her head is filled with Thayvian culture, she knows nothing of what it means to respect Rasheman, and her ignorance is intolerable," one woman proclaimed.

This greatly incensed the only slender women present: "Oh indeed, eh? And are we to refuse Theskian orphans, and half-orc girls and all manner of those who call Rasheman home? Am I myself not one of the Spirit Folk; is my mother not Faerie; did she not lead my family over the mountains to this land long after I had left childhood?"

"If our own menfolk be presented with exile or quarantine, how do we let this Thay-child roam freely?" falcon-feathers (her name escaped Nadezdha) retorted.

"Ha! Don't make this a fight it's not. Many an unproven has been sworn in at old age, and been taught the way. There is no _time limit_.," an older woman in gray with a fierce demon mask spat irritably.

"Like the necromancer herself," The blue-ox woman retorted bitterly, but this time her barb was not accepted by the community, and more than a few of the witches turned disapproving looks to her which suggested she was not only overstepping social bounds but possibly her rank.

The demon-mask woman cackled. "Our Dusk Dragon's not _old_, and isn't that _your_ problem with her? Her power, youth, and _bad manners_?"

"I believe," Yhelbruna interjected, "that we all already know the truth of this. Let me speak, that we may conclude this meeting and each attend to matters as is necessary."


	36. Decree

Yhelbruna spoke thusly:

"It is meaningless for us to weigh in on the suitability of a Thay-child as any witch's companion; here, that bond has clearly already been forged and set.

"Nor, under our law, has any crime been committed; for the child's status has altered with the forging of this companionship. She is no longer Thayvian, but rather now is the ward of a Wychlaran.

"I see no legal grounds for a trial;

"I do not believe I am about to watch a duel;

"So there is no challenge to be had to her status on that point: she is no longer to be called 'foreigner;'

"However, knowledge of the arcane is sacred in Rasheman, and the child is capable of touching the Weave. Regardless of her knowledge of the Art- or lack thereof- she will always have that potential. So her status must be based upon it.

"But to this, the answer is also simple, as it is written in our laws: The status of 'Unproven' exists for this reason. There are no special provisions to be had for 'strange cultures' or 'foreign teachings' or other rudimentary and gut-driven fears.

"Therefore: Should the child ever wish to be taught magic, or to practice magic, it must be done in the fashion of an Unproven; and then afterwards should she wish to progress further in learning the Art, she must pass the trials to become Wychlaran. Should she prove ambitious and unwilling to submit to our laws, she will be marked as Durthan, and as an enemy of the free peoples of Rasheman, to be hunted down accordingly.

"This is our way; and through these laws, we ensure that even strong personalities such as ours cannot stand in the way of what is right and fair in the land of Rasheman. Do we all know this to be true?"

There was quiet among the Hathran, and then nods, and murmured prayers to the goddess.

With that, Yhelbruna turned her gaze back down to Nadezdha. "Return to your mentor, girl; and know this:

"That you are welcome in Rasheman as one of our own, for so long as you keep to our ways, and to our laws, and to the words of the Wychlaran.

"Your citizenship may not always be easy to prove or explain, and thus I must advise you to not travel without escort, and to exercise wisdom and common sense when it comes to your safety.

"But in all legal manner, you are free here; you are a citizen of Rasheman; and you need never return to whence you came.

"Go and enjoy the day child; And let none bar your path out of bigotry or spite."


	37. Chapter 37

"T-that's it?" she asked, stunned.

"That's _it_," her Senneta agreed. "As if 'it' were something small. Hnh."

Sheilaktar had to tap her arms twice before Nadezdha realized she wanted her to let go of the jar of peaches. The Mulan girl released the jar as if burned by it, and Sheilaktar took it and set it gently to the ground by his feet. The Hathran was still wearing her bone-white mask, and Nadezdha realized her eyes most certainly gleamed green with it on. Green was necromancy's color. Odd; she'd never realized druidism and necromancy shared that in common, before. She watched her mentor, almost mesmerized.

Then Nythra had come back up to where she was sitting, and the robin-masked young woman was pressing a mug into her hands. "Here," Nythra insisted. "Drink. It will help."

"I-I-..." Nadezdha hesitated, looking at the beverage and taking it slowly. "T-thank you." She smelled apples.

"It is okay. You are a little in shock, I'd imagine," the young Hathran told him.

Nadezdha took a sip, and shuddered slightly at the taste of spice, and apples, and alcohol. Then she threw her head back, and swallowed a big gulp. A heat settled immediately into her bones and belly.

"Easy now!" Nythra laughed, steadying her shoulder.

The cider was just what she'd needed. She gave another big shudder, and then looked back to her mentor. They were sitting some distance from the gathering upon a rocky outcropping. Sheilaktar was weaving a cantrip to clean the stained coat. "Y-your mask is still on," she told the woman.

Sheilaktar dusted off her shoulder and then looked to her in surprise. After a moment, the necromancer cocked her head to the side. "Ah? Does it bother thee?"

Nadezdha was puzzled by that reply. "Are you upset?" she wondered.

"Are we _upset_, the child asks...!" Sheilaktar muttered heavily. Then she heaved a big sigh, and reached up to remove her mask.

Nadezdha blinked and then grabbed quickly at her Hathran's hand to still her. Without another word, she leaned down and kissed the witch's forehead. For a moment, Sheilaktar didn't move a muscle. Then her eyes flicked up to her fosterling, and the necromancer drew in a slow breath as if considering her. Another moment passed in silence. Then Sheilaktar stood, slowly removed her mask, and reached out to ruffle affectionately through Nadezdha's hair.

"How do _you_ feel?" the Hathran asked her fosterling.

"_Weird_," Nadezdha admitted in a quiet voice. "And confused. And nauseous."

Nythra laughed. "I have so many questions; It is not every day I get to meet a Thayvian."

Nadezdha winced. Sheilaktar grunted. "Well she's no longer Thayvian. Nythra, can you give us a moment alone?" she asked.

"Of course, Sheilaktar," The younger woman bowed out with a reassuring wink at Nadezdha. Then she turned and headed back down to the gathering.


	38. Chapter 38

Sheilaktar sat down beside Nadezdha with a heavy sigh, and the younger woman scooted over to accommodate her. For a moment, the cocoa-skinned woman just scanned the gathering and seemed to be collecting her thoughts. Nadezdha sat with her elbows on her knees and her cider cupped protectively between both hands. She took another hesitant sip from the drink. Sheilaktar looked towards the sound.

She began to cast, and Nadezdha though he recognized a tingle of divination. Then abruptly a number of shimmering forms sprung up around them, and Sheilaktar's face screwed up in surprize. "_Excuse me_!" she proclaimed at all the wizard eyes and other divination spells that been aimed at her. "Thou all hast three seconds to disperse all this muck before I throw thy tools back with such force thou art left gibbering like simpletons! How _dare_ thee! Thou ought to be ashamed!"

When Sheilaktar has finished terrorizing her fellow Wychlaran, and had proofed both they and their immediate vicinity against magical oversight, she reached over and put an arm about her fosterling, and pulled the Mulan child into herself.

"Are we still being watched?" the girl asked.

"No," Sheilaktar muttered, grumpy. "I can assure thee that now we are _not_. I have even thrown up wards to baffle lip readers. Hmph! Nosy, gossip mongers..."

Nadezdha was grateful to be a little shorter than her Hathran now. She leaned her temple bewildered against the woman's shoulder, and sighed just as heavily as Sheilaktar had; but in a much higher pitch. The necromancer's mouth quirked.

"Thy voice is like a skylark's," the witch whispered almost conspiratorially.

"My _voice_? I have _breasts!_" the child squeaked, still dazed.

"Er, no. No thou doest not," she chortled. Nadezdha scowled at her and saw that the witch's mouth had pressed into a mischievous grin.

"You _turned_ me into a _girl_!" she flailed her only free arm. "And I do _so_ have!"

"Hush, hush!" Sheilaktar cackled, chafing the girl's shoulder and pulling her closer as she twisted to help shut out the outside world. "Not so loud!"

"What _gender _am I!?" the child whispered in alarm; "Am I going to find men attractive?! What pronouns do I use!? Why do I want to_ cry_ suddenly!? _This_ was _not_ covered in transmutation theory!"

Sheilaktar grinned, and hauled the waif bodily into her lap. Nadezdha eeped, and then leaned back against her Hathran in defeated bewilderment, misery, and relief. Sheilaktar immediately wrapped both arms around her, and pressed her cheek against the girl's temple. "Thou doest not wish to cry because of thine _sex_, little fool," she laughed. "But rather because there were reasons to be afraid- and those reasons have abruptly been removed."

Nadezdha mumbled something inarticulate, sinking into the woman's hold. No, the Mulan child wagered, she would not be finding _men_ attractive.

"It will only be a week," Sheilaktar reminded her. "Then we shall return to the Orchards and discuss what to do with thee."

Sheilaktar had perhaps expected to cow the Mulan child, but Nadezdha looked up at her with that heavy-lidded and almost smug expression the necromancer had seen before on a slightly more boyish face. "That would have worked this morning, but now I'm not fooled by you; you drew a javelin for me, and you aren't turning me out," the child claimed brazenly, smiling just enough that Sheilaktar could see her teeth.

The necromancer jumped slightly, and looked down at her in surprise. She grunted. And she tried to grumble; but then Homen's smiles were so rare that they had a somewhat disarming quality to them.

"Yhelbruna said I may stay in Rasheman," the girl murmured, her brows furrowed together. "She said I was no foreigner because you took me in?"

"'Yhelbruna.'" the necromancer looked down at the girl in surprise. "I do not believe thou heard that name from me."

"I studied history and geography," Nadezdha reminded her.

"Ah."

"That... That's really _it_? That's... that's all there is to staying...? Well, if I were actually..."

"What doest thou mean? What else would there be but the word of a Wychlaran?"

"I-In Thay, e-everyone has papers! Identification papers! Describing an individual's status and caste and terms of stay, any land ownership, and the provinces or cities in which they are permitted to live or travel. They-"

"No. There are no such papers here. Rasheman does not track every mote of dust that floats by; we like to keep our sanities."

Nadezdha fell quiet. Then she took in a long, slow, deep, quivering breath; almost a yawn, really; before turning her attention back to her cider. She sipped it. The taste was growing on her. "What now?" she asked.

"A hut has been erected for me, which thou shall share. Then we shall attend the gathering, and proceed through its rituals as we are needed. It would be typical for thee to associate with girls thine own age, but in this circumstance it will not be strange for thee to remain with me most of the festival. Only for the major events will thou be required to join thy own caste."

The girl swallowed. "How will I know what to do?"

Sheilaktar looked down at her. Instead of answering, she turned her gaze back out to the gathering and said: "Thou art a very convincing actor."

Her brows scrunched up in sudden confusion an alarm. "Are you angry? But you _told_ me to-!"

"Yes, I told you to act; And what a stunning tapestry of clever lies thou wove from the damning truth," Sheilaktar muttered bitterly. "I watched how thee stitched that story together in their minds; letting them fill gaps and transitions- I watched how thee- how _we_- lied to a woman who cannot _be_ lied to. Do you think I felt proud in that moment?"

The Mulan girl grimaced. "You are mad at me for obeying you?" she wondered.

Sheilaktar looked to her. "Well, no. I..." she deflated slightly, and her expression softened. "I suppose it is not very fair to find fault in something which one hast needed simply to survive, mm?"

The ex-Thayvian was quiet a long moment before saying: "I think I needed it a lot more in the past." She looked at her cider. "Could we work on me not needing it much in the future?"

Sheilaktar smiled and ruffled her black hair. "I think that is a good plan. Hmph. I should warn thee, Homen, there is-"

"Excuse me, but my name is _Nadezdha_!" the girl informed her sternly. "And it is to remain such until you have put_ things_ back to their_ natural order!_"

"Ha! Is that so? Very well then, little chameleon," the Wychlaran teased. "Little _Nadezdha_. I should warn thee; there will be a ritual bathing ceremony, and thou will be with the unproven and ethran companions of other Wychlaran for it. Nude, that is."

The bluster went out of Nadezdha. She was quiet a moment. Then she looked at her cider. "I need two or three more of these."

"Art thou so alarmed by thine appearance?" the witch asked wryly. "Or hast thou merely never seen a naked woman before?"

"Are we counting the night I dressed you after the Lindwurm?" Nadezdha asked meekly. "Because if so, I was somewhat distracted."

Sheilaktar was laughing. "Oh child, child! I was under the impression that thine kinsmen were disturbingly and unethically hedonistic! Will you explain my misinformation? How could you have never peeked at a single-"

"Excuse me, I was studying hard trying not to _die!_ And I shared a room with-" Nadezdha grimaced.

Sheilaktar tried to wipe out whatever she'd remembered by continuing the conversation down another avenue: "Well then, I think I should put you in front of a mirror alone for a few hours to prevent any suspicious gaping incidents," the necromancer drawled.

"Nevermind. I need ten or eleven more of these," Nadezdha mumbled at her cider.

"I think I'm going to need to give you a few tumbler-fulls of _Jhuild," _the Hathran snickered in agreement. "Or perhaps a taste of brandy. Goodness it is just basic anatomy! Mm. Come. Come, let us go to our things, and give Nythra the slip."

"Okay. Sheilaktar? She's sweet and friendly. Genuinely, right? But still, she's _Yhelbruna_'s little bird, isn't she? And I could fumble in front of her too easily," the girl asked as Sheilaktar boosted her to her feet.

"Thou hast a quick mind, a sharp wit, and good eyes, if thou realized so much about her while frightened out of thy skull," the necromancer praised. Nadezdha waited for a 'but.' When none came, she smiled; glad to have skills that weren't immediately ascribed to vices, sins, or, well, Thay.


End file.
